


The More You Know

by Likerealpeopledo



Series: Love in the Time of Trivia [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Back to the Future References, Blow Jobs, Chicken Pox, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Trivia Team, Tacos, specialized avocado trolling (professional grade), trivia to lovers, trolling as a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:46:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 72,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23327971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likerealpeopledo/pseuds/Likerealpeopledo
Summary: David Rose needs a sixth person for ultimate (trivia) game play. Enter Patrick Brewer.It's two smart idiots falling in love.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Love in the Time of Trivia [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1923790
Comments: 814
Kudos: 754





	1. Chapter 1

Three thousand dollars split six ways isn’t going to change David’s life. Two years ago, it wouldn’t have even changed his night. Today, however, it is money that he doesn’t have and can put toward...anything that isn’t working full-time at the Elmdale Art House.

“I can’t believe that Gwen bailed. She’s usually so reliable,” Stevie laments, tossing a scoring sheet and answer pad onto the filmy tabletop in front of David. This whole bar is tacky; it feels like David is stuck to a strip of fly paper, or wearing a very incorrect pair of latex pants. (There is correct latex clothing, for instance, the Balenciaga Spring 2016 collection. This is not that.)

“I think you’re confused about how reliability works,” David responds. Gwen may be the most fickle person that David has ever met, but he’s forced himself to deal with it in exchange for her plethora of finance- and sports-related knowledge. He’s finding himself compromising a lot of his usual standards lately in the name of victory. He shudders to think what might be next. “Thankfully she found her own replacement this time, picking up some random over at the baseball...arena.”

“It’s a field. And she said he had an honest face.” Stevie pauses to give David a meaningful look. “And an ass that would not quit.”

“Hmm. Well, that does actually narrow it down, so thank you, Pervert Gwen.”

“Great. We’re on the lookout for a nameless male between the ages of 18 and 85, who may or may not be wearing booty shorts. Easy to spot.”

David knows he should allow Stevie to distract him with other people’s poor sartorial choices and the valid questioning of Gwen’s judgement—usually hours worth of entertainment—but he is much too keyed up. This is practically a blind date, historically not a situation in which David has prospered. He doesn’t know if this new guy will be compatible or if his interests will match what the team needs. And it is all about the team. Okay, it’s eighty-seven percent about David’s lack of liquid assets and thirteen percent about the team.

“Remind me again why I’m putting myself through this?”

“I’m guessing control issues, but I’m not your therapist.” Stevie pats his hand less than reassuringly and David shrugs; she isn’t _wrong_.

“Go lick a sandcastle,” he says, but his heart isn’t really in it. It’s going to be a long day, he can tell, the same way an aching bone foretells weather changes.

Maybe this guy isn’t coming. Maybe he got wind of the iron grip David likes to keep on the team’s decisions, or that Ted can’t stop making puns, or that Tennessee has the personality of a pinecone. Or maybe Gwen never actually found anyone to take her place. As it stands, everyone David has seen enter so far appears to have just emerged from the depths of their parents’ dank basement; not an honest face or quit-less ass among them.

“This isn’t a great way to make a first impression, being late.” David says, annoyed.

“Okay, but I’m not sure how you’re defining late, seeing as we don’t start for at least another half an hour.”

David wishes he could be as apathetic about trivia, or anything, as Stevie is, but his apathy appears to have grown in a bit more willy-nilly than hers. Maybe it is because lately he finds himself in the precarious position of wanting to make the most out of staying here, since he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere else.

“And I am sure you’ll find plenty of ways to make sure he doesn’t make a good first impression.”

“Ha ha, thanks so much.” David laughs joylessly. “If he’s never played before, maybe he should arrive with enough time to become acquainted with his teammates.”

Stevie gestures toward the four other empty chairs at their table. “Maybe you should have spread that message to everyone on the text chain, Captain.”

David is giving Stevie his most menacing glare when a compact, sturdy-looking guy in a light blue button up, jeans, and a braided belt (status of butt: indeterminate) confidently strides up to their table.

Giving Stevie a polite nod, he looks over to David and offers his hand. “Hey, I’m Patrick. I really hope you’re David. Gwen told me to look for a man wearing black who, uh, looked out of place?”

“Yes, I am...David.” David is going to have to work with Gwen on her visual descriptors. If he ever speaks to her again after this.

Relief passes over Patrick’s face. “Great. Glad I found you.” He has a smile and a handshake to rival that of a game show host and he is blandly handsome in the way that sociopaths and investment bankers often are. David has no idea if Patrick is either, but he could very well be both. Patrick’s hand is rough with calluses and he has very square teeth, and something about him unnerves David immediately. Like Patrick is holding back a joke, and David is somehow the butt of it.

“Hey, I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.” Patrick continues, after introducing himself more formally to Stevie, still smiling, still standing. “I ended up going to three different bars because Gwen forgot to tell me the location. Did not realize how many people day drink around here.”

“Oh, yeah, pretty much everybody. Alcoholism is our second leading cause of death after farm-related accidents.” Stevie points to her bottle of Red Mountain beer and raises it as an offering. “Want me to get you one? I already started a tab.”

Patrick accepts and Stevie exits, leaving David alone to make small talk. He briefly wonders why he hasn’t made up some sort of packet for orienting new team members, since the door for the sixth spot has been a bit revolving and it's getting exhausting having to review.

Presumably assessing—correctly—that David isn’t eager to act as any kind of tour guide, Patrick finally pulls out the chair directly across from David’s and sits down. His shoulders are broad and David finds himself accidentally transfixed by the fact that Patrick doesn’t seem to button the top two buttons of his shirt. He is all throat and clavicle and stubbled Adam’s apple as the neon bar signs cast ephemeral shadows against the subtle curves of Patrick’s cheekbones and over the straight line of his nose. Huh. Maybe Patrick is cuter than a murderer.

Patrick leans forward, startling David with his willingness to close the distance between them. “Hey, thanks for letting me join you guys. I haven’t really played competitive trivia like this before, but it sounded like a lot of fun when Gwen mentioned it.”

“Fun,” David scoffs. Probably someone somewhere in the room is having fun. That isn’t really his approach and he doesn’t see that changing; David is serious. “I mean, yes, it is fun. When we win.” Maybe it comes out a little more haughtily than he intended, but Patrick doesn’t look offended, he’s more amused, which is somewhat intriguing. It’s new, at any rate. Most people would have recoiled in horror by now.

“Okay, good. I think we might have similar philosophies then,” Patrick says gamely, reaching over to pick up the score sheet David has on the table in front of him and scanning it briefly. He glances up at David, eyes alight, brimming with a fire that seems to be stoked by competition. “Any teams playing today that we need to kneecap?”

Hope bubbles into David’s chest.

“Yes, probably, most of them,” David replies, practically rubbing his hands together in glee and briefly wondering if he should troll the baseball arena for randoms more often, if this is the kind of competitor that you pick up. This guy gets it, even if his clothes—David maneuvers in his chair so he can check the shoes and finds an upsettingly clunky pair of hiking boots staring him in the face—demonstrate definite room for improvement.

“Okay, so fill me in.”

“There,” David surreptitiously points to the table directly to their right, “That’s Ronnie’s team, The Home Runners.”

“Oh yeah, I know Ronnie from the baseball league,” Patrick says in a tone that is half awestruck and half fearful. “She’s tough.”

Ronnie is brilliant and unflappable and David wishes he had half of her ability to glare people into submission. It would come in incredibly handy, especially at the Art House when youths linger too long at the concession without complimenting his Dries van Noten sweater or his Rick Owens hightops. “Well, if you already know Ronnie, then there,” he points out Dr. Miguel’s team sitting closer to the bar, “is Smells Like Updog in Here,” David allows his face to tell the tale of his feelings regarding their repugnant choice of name. “They’re all vets.”

“Military or animal?”

“Animal. They’re terrific at answering science questions but generally terrible at life. Extremely judgy.” Which, coming from David, puts them at the apex of local snobbery. David decides he’ll let Patrick discover the irony of the Updog team viewing poor amiable Ted as their mortal enemy on his own. “And then that’s Hook, Line, and Thinker, the retired cops who go fly fishing together. They’ve mastered crime and punishment questions, obviously, but they are also very into eastern religions and philosophy.”

“Good to know.” Patrick grins. He is already settled in at the table, having pulled some of David’s scrap paper in front of himself, and he’s absently folding the edges as they’ve been chatting, though he hasn’t dropped any eye contact. It’s a bit like staring into the sun, bright and beaming and concentrated. “Hey, what is our team name, by the way?”

“Shut the Front Dior.” It’s a good name, David knows. It’s just pretentious enough, and he may preen a little as he announces it. From his side, like a crouching gargoyle, Stevie snickers, because she has made no secret about how ridiculous she finds their team name.

“Shut the Front...Dior?” Patrick repeats slowly, as if he’s rolling the words around in his mouth, and he doesn’t quite know what to make of them. He’s smirking a little, no, a lot, and David can’t decide if it’s horrific or attractive. It’s sort of a combination of both. David also thinks he doesn’t want it to stop, which is untenable, at best. The smirk slowly evolves into a full-fledged smile. “Is that because of a love of fashion or just...doors?”

“Yes. That’s exactly it. I love a good door,” David says dryly.

“Well, who doesn’t love a good door,” Patrick responds with a disconcerting earnestness, though it’s clear from the mischievous glint in his eyes that he does not, in fact, feel any which way about points of entry.

“Mmm.” David tries to ignore Stevie, who is having great difficulty stifling her laughter behind her hand. It is not a good look. He gives her chair leg a little kick for emphasis, but to no avail. He’s beginning to feel very ganged up on.

“Barn. No. Storm,” Patrick smiles, a wide, maybe sarcastic, almost dangerous smile. “Now that is a _sturdy_ door.”

The way he says sturdy is almost pornographic to David’s ears, so David is surprised when he hears himself ask: “Would you call it sturdy?”

“I mean, it’s certainly protective…” Patrick starts to trail off and David thinks for a moment that the impromptu door-naming siege has concluded. “Oh, panel. Glass. French,” Patrick lists, proving David wrong, and not even for the first time that day. “The one, you know, that’s cut in half so you can just open the top—”

“That’s a Dutch door,” David unwittingly supplies.

“Yes! A Dutch door!” Patrick’s grin carves into his cheeks like a Jack O’ Lantern. No one in the history of the world has ever been this enthusiastic about a Dutch door. Not even the Dutch. “And the one with the slats—”

“Louvered,” David responds, obliging. Fuck, how is Patrick making him do this? Mind control? “No.”

Ted announces his arrival to the table by poking his head over Patrick’s shoulder and interjecting himself like a conversational whack-a-mole. “You guys, I have no idea what we’re talking about or why, but it all sounds a-door-able.” And Patrick, damn him, looks utterly charmed.

That clinches it; Patrick’s taste levels are appalling. Not to mention that within less than an hour, he’s already managed to wind David into an ouroboros of nervous energy and general confusion, so he had better be bringing a wealth of knowledge extensive enough to bridge that ever-widening gap.

With Ted there and already punning, and Tennessee and George arriving not soon after, the whole team is finally assembled. It’s just a few minutes until Ray, their regular weekly trivia host, cuts into the Carole King song he’s been playing to begin his opening remarks.

“Welcome everyone to the Greater Elms Trivia League Finals!”

As Ray begins, Patrick sits back, restlessly drumming the fingers of his right hand on the tabletop. By this point in the season, David can mouth the scripted rules right along with Ray, so he does, mimicking Ray’s intonations under his breath as he goes on about point wagers being six, three, and one during the first half of play and teams having the length of a song to turn in their answer.

“Please no shouting out answers or using your smartphones,” David mouths along with Ray, and he gets the sense that he’s being watched.

David looks over to find Patrick half-smiling at him, his expression bordering on overly amused as Ray continues his scripted rule-patter.

“Congratulations teams, you’ve made it through twelve weeks of league play and qualified to play for today’s first place prize of three thousand dollars!” At this, all of the teams whoop and holler, and Ray pauses dramatically.

“But do not forget, today’s winning team also receives a _heavily discounted_ bid to compete in The Paradigm, Canada’s national trivia league championship, where teams from all over will come together to share their love of trivia and compete to win fifty thousand dollars in cold, hard cash.” Ray hosts the trivia games weekly at both the Wobby Elm and the Café Tropical, and he never ceases to sound like he has frustrated dreams of becoming a radio DJ. “Perhaps now would be a good time to ask yourself: does your team have what it takes?”

Jocelyn, who will pick up answers and keep score while Ray reads questions, appears over Patrick’s shoulder, smiling. “Good luck today, you guys. I know you’re the underdogs with Gwen out, but I’m rooting for you!” She makes little fists in the air and pumps them as if she’s holding invisible pom poms.

David is sure that his face is unable to contain his feelings about being considered out of the running to win. Gwen was helpful, but she wasn’t exactly Ken Jennings. They could still win without her….with the right categories and a smattering of answers that Only David Knows (the author of _The Life of Pi_ and the definition of the word _polymath_ fall into this category, if previous trivia games with this group of competitors are any indication). Although even Jocelyn, who appears to take an intravenous drip of positivity with her coffee in the morning, thinks that things are dire, so maybe he should be more worried than he already is.

To Patrick, Stevie says, “We may not ‘have what it takes,’” she makes very emphatic air quotes, “but we do have a stamp with our team name on it.”

“Ooh, impressive.” Patrick says and David is fairly certain that he is now being mocked by both parties.

“People whisper about it when they see it, like we’re the freaks with a stamp. We have a game stamp.” Stevie repeats it like she’s just announced _we have gonorrhea_ or _flannel is expressly prohibited_. David has heard all the stamp opinions before, but Patrick hasn’t, and he’s nodding in agreement with Stevie. This social dynamic became imbalanced quickly.

“Okay. It literally makes no sense to sit here and write out our team name over and over on the answer sheets if we have access to something that does it faster and more consistently. It’s a very efficient system.” David pets the velvet bag housing the team stamp as if to comfort it after Stevie’s onslaught of insult. “And it is a bespoke font.”

Stevie tosses back the last of her beer and fixes David with her most defiant look. “You’re a bespoke f—”

“—Our categories for the first round will be Sports, Business, and Science!” Ray announces, cutting into their bickering.

“It’s as if they want us to lose,” David mumbles, gripping his pen tighter over the answer pad. These categories are...not in his wheelhouse. Or Stevie’s. The others don’t even have wheelhouses; they have niches. Really tight, deathly specific niches. Which is why Gwen filled so many gaps, and why they need Patrick to fill in even more.

Patrick doesn’t seem to feel the weight of expectation bearing down on him as his absent-minded paper folding appears to gain more purpose, and he’s pinching in the sides of the creased paper to form a triangle. David almost has to sit on his own hand to keep from knocking on the table to regain Patrick’s splintered attention.

“Question one, in Sports.” Ray pauses for dramatic effect and David feels his gut clench. A sports question that doesn’t involve animals is out of Ted’s current purview.

“Hey,” Stevie elbows him. “You have resting quiz face."

“What American Hall of Famer is the oldest major league pitcher to throw a no-hitter?” Ray rereads the question for clarity and then turns off his mic as Madonna’s _Express Yourself_ fills the air. When the music starts, the other teams start to murmur in discussion.

Patrick doesn’t hesitate, leaning across the table and into David’s space. He smells like citrus and mint and he’s close enough that David can count the reddish brown curls as they swirl near Patrick’s hairline, wild and lush. “Nolan Ryan.” Patrick draws out the syllables slowly and pitches his voice lower, presumably to keep anyone at the surrounding tables from hearing, or maybe just to make David question his own judgement about what he finds attractive. Because that tone of voice is...something.

Either way, he could have said the correct answer was Queen Elizabeth in that low growl and David would have believed him. David nods a few times just to clear out his head and reroute his blood flow to more useful avenues. He swallows and tries to stay relatively calm. “Are you six points sure?”

Patrick doesn’t blink. “Six points, yes.”

David looks to Stevie and to Ted, who both nod in approval, and then holds his arm over his head so that Jocelyn will come retrieve their answer.

After Jocelyn walks away, Patrick jiggles his leg again and groans. “I hope I’m right.”

“What do you mean, you hope you’re right?” David isn’t proud of how high his voice gets. It must still be within the range of human hearing, because one of the less visually pleasing members of Vermouth the Bell Tolls shoots him a dirty look.

“I mean, I think I’m right. It's pretty easy…” he straightens in his chair, head cocked in thought. “No, I know I’m right.”

“Okay.” Maybe Patrick just needs strong boundaries. David gets that. He likes boundaries. Rules. As team captain, he has to set a certain expectation. “Just, if you say you’re six points sure, be six points sure.”

The corner of Patrick’s lip twitches. It’s infinitesimal but it is a definite twitch. “Is there an ‘or’?” He challenges.

“There’s no ‘or.’ Just...just...be better.” David splutters. Not his best motivational work, probably. But it doesn’t seem to phase Patrick, whose whole mouth has joined the slightly twitchy lip now.

Luckily, the question is easy enough that teams have it turned in quickly, and David isn’t left long to contemplate Patrick’s lips. Thank god.

Ray cuts back in and re-reads the question, announcing that ‘Nolan Ryan’ is indeed the correct answer and the majority of the room erupts in some version of celebration. David glances up to see Patrick leaning back in his chair, rubbing idly at his left forearm and looking vaguely self-satisfied.

“Good job, new guy!” Ted claps Patrick on the back and it’s hard to tell in the dim lighting, but it seems like Patrick may flush slightly pink.

“Question two, in the category of Business,” Ray starts, “What is the two word term for the friendly investor who acquires a corporation—“

“White knight,” Patrick says, before Ray even finishes his sentence. “That is definitely a white knight.”

The thing about playing trivia is that nothing can be proven in the moment. It might be what David loves and hates about it the most, because so much of the game is depending on another person to either confirm or deny what you think you know. David and Stevie have a rhythm established already; David knows that if Stevie says “I swear,” when she’s answering a question, it’s probably wrong. But if she gives an answer, without hesitation, it’s usually correct.

David hopes the same thing holds true with the new guy. Patrick. Patrick, who is casually flipping his pen in the air and catching it, and looking very intently at David as he awaits a response.

“Write it down, David,” Patrick says, shocking David a little with his vehemence. “Three points.”

David doesn’t want to admit what that does for him either, so he writes the words down as the chorus of _A Little Help from my Friends_ reverberates through Ray’s sound system.

Patrick contributes answers to several questions in the next round and beyond, most of which David either knows himself or can at least confirm when Patrick offers them, none of which are rocket science. Except for the one that is technically, theoretically rocket science...but also the name of a cartoon dog, so.

It’s fine. It’s good even. They’re scoring points, betting appropriately, and Patrick, after his initial cocksuredness, is good about talking things out and brainstorming. He’s well-read and he’s bright and he picks up on context clues that Gwen normally doesn’t. Occasionally, when David confers with Stevie, he’ll look back at Patrick to find him looking quickly away, as if he’s been caught doing...something. But a new energy prickles under David’s skin every time Patrick jiggles his leg and flips his pen and creases his paper and gives that self-congratulatory little flick of his lips.

It’s annoying. No. Patrick is annoying. Patrick is also right. Patrick is annoying because he’s right. And also he is sort of cute, if you like annoying right guys. David used to think that he didn’t, but apparently now he is, at the very least, ambivalent.

The other problem is that they’ve been able to answer questions fairly easily these first three rounds before Halftime, leaving the three minutes between each question for incessant, unending chatter.

“But how do I know you?” Ted asks Patrick, not for the first time since the game started. He’s also asked Patrick if he has any pets (no, he’s allergic to cats) and if he goes to the gym ( _occasionally_ , Patrick says, but the forearms...the forearms have seen the gym).

Patrick, who up until now has been the picture of composure, is shrugging stiffly and his jaw twitches, tense. “Oh, I’m sure I’ve seen you around town. At the cafe, for sure,” he makes a tight gesture with his hand, the universal signifier for all over.

“Yeah, but,” Ted presses on, moving his chair a little closer to Patrick’s and David finds himself resisting a strange possessive urge to push it back to where it was. “It’s not just around town. Did we go to high school together?”

“No, I just have one of those faces,” Patrick says, and it is sort of true. He looks like everyone and no one, the kind of person who blends into a crowd until he speaks or moves or acts, and then, as David is finding this afternoon, it’s almost impossible for Patrick to fade back in.

“Huh.” Ted contemplates his mozzarella stick briefly until a light of recognition appears behind his eyes. “Oh!”

David watches as Patrick’s jaw clenches. On the table, his paper is now shaped like a diamond, and he’s creasing and folding different edges into smaller triangles. His fingers might tremble, just slightly. “I don’t—”

“—You’re the kid from the YouTube thing. _The Best_ , right? God, every girlfriend I ever had showed me that video and asked me why I couldn’t do something like that for her. And you know who still loves to watch it? The ladies down at the Senior Center! They go crazy for a crooner.”

David has no idea what Ted is talking about, but Stevie knocks David with her pointy elfin elbow in her excitement. “Holy shit! That was you? I think my cousin made me watch that video a thousand times, just sobbing at how beautiful it was and how no one was ever going to love—” she stops herself. “Well, then I had to replace my phone because Bree short-circuited it with her tears, so you owe me, actually.”

“Not the first phone I’ve been asked to replace.” The answer is flip but the tone isn’t and there’s a crimson flush washing over Patrick’s face. He seems a little squirmy, a little undone, and David has an odd flash of sympathy for him. He knows that discomfort, of people knowing more about him than he does about them. “Thanks, uh, for the views,” Patrick tells his unused silverware.

“Aren’t you still in music now, though?” Ted cuts back in. “I feel like it was something about—was it buttons? Are you in a band about buttons? Is that a thing?”

The guy who confidently bantered with David about doors appears to be retreating slowly into someone who looks vaguely uncomfortable.

David knows that he is at times overly demonstrative, that his hands and his lips and his eyes don’t know how to keep secrets, but Patrick is either almost completely inscrutable or an entirely open book. Now, Patrick just seems apprehensive, his blunt fingernail smoothing at the folded edge of his paper.

“Uh, yeah. The Button Downs,” Patrick says, swallowing. As his Adam’s apple bobs, David watches as Patrick’s armor falls into place; his eyes shutter and his voice tightens as much as his shoulders. “We’re taking some time off right now. Doing some regrouping. Going to get back out on the road soon.”

That’s when Ray cuts back in with the answer to the previous question, which they’ve gotten right, and then it’s on to the next. When David looks back at Patrick, there isn’t any trace of his previous reluctance; it is as if the strained exchange with Ted never happened.

When Ray reads the scores after Halftime, Shut the Front Dior is in a tie for second place with Hook, Line, and Thinker. Brodors Before Hodors, a team of college aged LARPers, is in first, but David’s team is only four points out of the lead.

Four points. There are also three more rounds and a final question to get through, but a win might actually be attainable.

Maybe Patrick is sensing it too, because his fidgeting seems to be intensifying. Patrick must notice David’s judgemental look, because he stops and sits up straighter in his chair. “This is pretty crazy,” Patrick says, a little like he’s telling David a secret. David doesn’t want to acknowledge the strange swell of satisfaction that rises in his chest at the idea that Patrick wants to share something with him. “I just thought I’d come and answer a couple of questions and that would be it. This is...this is actually fun.”

“It’s definitely more fun when we’re winning. Or close to it, anyway.”

Patrick laughs. “I get that. For sure.”

“Oh, are you also a sore loser?” Stevie cuts in. “David, tell Patrick about last week when you banned Connor from the Art House because they beat us in that tie breaker.”

David whips his head around to glare pointedly at Stevie. “First of all, there were mitigating circumstances. Second,” is that there really isn’t a second. David has zero compunction for those actions. He would do it again. But Patrick is watching him, waiting for some sort of cute anecdote and suddenly, David isn’t sure that he wants to expose the less attractive sides of himself. Which is weird because he doesn’t care if Patrick likes him. “Anyway, have we already turned in our answer?”

“Ray hasn’t given us the categories yet, big guy.”

“Thanks, Ted.” Still, David thinks as he slumps a little into his seat, this could have gone worse.

And then it does.

They’re in the last round, in the category of Plants, when Ray asks a question about a vegetable from the thistle family, which David absolutely knows, without a doubt. He scribbles the word onto the answer sheet, slashes the number seven onto the wager line, and shoves his arm into the air, almost bumping Jocelyn in the nose as she crosses behind him to retrieve it.

“Feeling good about that one?” Patrick asks, clearly amused. “Did you want to consult any of us, or…”

“No, thanks, I got it.” David dismisses him. Jocelyn glances down at the paper and makes a little face that causes David’s blood to turn to ice in his veins. This is not ‘hey, this is a correct answer’ body language that Jocelyn is displaying. “Wait,” he says, but Jocelyn is already walking away to collect an answer from the Home Runners at Ronnie’s table.

Stevie senses his apprehension. “What is it, David? Is something wrong?”

From his side conversation with Ted, Patrick also turns to listen. “Wait, what’s going on?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. “Fuck.”

“This doesn’t seem like great news.” Stevie says unhelpfully. “Did you want to tell us what is happening or do you want us to guess?”

What David wants is to be swallowed into the earth, but even for Elmdale, it seems unlikely. “Fuck.”

“Okay, so far, we have that.” Stevie says, frustrated. Even Tennessee is giving David side-eye, and she once suggested that Alexander Hamilton was a US president, so she has no room to judge. “You wrote down ‘artichoke’ right?”

David can feel his head nodding and nodding until it isn’t, when he starts to shake it from side to side. “Yeah, no. I was picturing an artichoke, I could see it, I could taste the parmesan—”

“Oh, that dip is delicious. I make it at the cafe sometimes when we get a good shipment of—”

“Not now, George, please, I’m having a panic attack,” David snaps and George shrinks back into his chair. Sweat is now dripping down David’s back in anticipation of what he has to tell the others. “I didn’t write down artichoke,” David says miserably.

“What? Why not? What did you write?” Stevie asks.

Seven points, a seven point, second half mistake. And it’s all his fault. “Avocado,” he says, in a small voice. “I wrote down avocado.”

Everyone is staring at David in varying states of disbelief until Patrick reaches across the table, fingertips brushing the exposed hairs on David’s wrist. His cuticles are very dry but his hand is warm and his eyes are unsettlingly kind. “Hey. It’s okay. No one is upset. It happens.”

From David’s side, Stevie makes a dissenting noise. “I mean, I love spinach-avocado dip.”

“Oh my god.” David is mortified. He is horrified and mortified and he wants to crawl under the table and burrow into the disgustingly filthy wood floor that his Rick Owens shoes are sticking to and then he’d like to burst into flames for good measure. And then maybe have his ashes thrown into the nearest volcano. The warm gaze of the stranger sitting across from him isn’t helping either. “Oh my god.”

David’s brain is just a humming chasm after that. Ray announces Brodors Before Hodors as the winners, with Shut the Front Dior in second. Apparently the cops had a worse second half than David did and fell to a distant sixth. There’s a comically large check presentation that David can’t bear to watch and while his tablemates are distracted, David actually considers just fleeing the venue entirely.

But he doesn’t, because he’s a grown man who rode the bus here and Stevie is his ride home.

Shoulders hunched and head bowed, David has been staring down at the tabletop for longer than is socially appropriate when a tiny paper frog hops jauntily into his eyeline. He looks up to find Patrick deep in conversation with Ted, but David could swear that he sees Patrick’s brown eyes darting his direction, just for a moment, as if he’d been waiting for David’s reaction.

David picks up the origami frog, studying its carefully creased triangular legs and the diligent folds of its pentagon-shaped body and head. It’s unexpected and beautiful and strangely intricate, and David wonders how many other surprises are contained within the person who created it. Careful that Patrick’s attention is indeed elsewhere, David tucks the paper frog into his bag with the stamp, just in case it was truly meant for him.

That’s when David notices people bustling around Ray, including Jocelyn, who looks uncharacteristically stern, and she’s speaking to Eric, one of the LARPers, in a manner that does not imply a congratulatory nature. Eric frowns and gestures and after he tosses his hands up in what appears to be frustration, Jocelyn takes Ray aside. With a grave look on his face, Ray finally returns to the microphone.

“Everyone, I regret to inform you that a rule violation has taken place during this finals match. The first place team has been disqualified for use of their cellular phones during the game. I would like to congratulate,” Ray consults his score sheet and Jocelyn gives him a nod of confirmation, “Shut the Front Dior for their first place victory and their entry into the Paradigm this winter. Everyone, let’s give them a big round of applause!”

After that, everything happens very fast. Stevie whoops, a sound of joy that David was not aware she could produce, and she throws her arms around David in celebration, hanging from his frame like an inebriated koala. Across the table, Ted is standing, high-fiving and hugging everyone within a twelve-foot radius and Patrick is jumping up and down right along with him. David deposits Stevie back on the floor just as he finds himself being surrounded by an unfamiliar pair of rather firm and compact arms.

“We did it, man. Congratulations!” Patrick says. He’s shorter than David by a few inches so his lips are level with David’s neck as he holds him, his breath hot there. Goosebumps may form; there are a lot of nerve endings along the throat, although thanks to some recent Anatomy questions, he’s learned that more exist in the ears and eyes. Anyway, it doesn’t mean anything.

“Congratulations to you,” David repeats, extracting himself from the embrace, hand immediately drawn toward the heat currently pulsating from the accidental contact. It’s a lot, losing and winning and hugging, and maybe he should be sitting. Definitely not touching.

Patrick stands in front of David for a beat too long, blinking and breathing a little shallowly from the celebration. He seems momentarily lost again, pausing the way he did when Ted brought up his past, until he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card. It’s cream-colored with the initials _PB_ embossed on the back and it takes David a moment to realize that Patrick is handing him his phone number.

“Oh.” David says, still a little shocked.

Patrick glances down at the card that hangs in the air between them. The set of his shoulders changes and any trace of uncertainty is gone. “Look, I think...I think you should call me if I can be of any help.”

“Hmm.” David responds, almost not knowing where to look. He figures it out, though, and watches Patrick’s jaw move. “I mean, I think we’re good.”

Patrick drops his eyes slightly. “Um, yeah. Okay. No, that makes sense.”

“No, I mean, I think we’re good together...as a team. Partners. For the trivia. Yes.” Okay, David, just trip over your own tongue. “It’s just...it’s a team decision. And I would need to talk to, uh, everyone…” he gestures lamely at the rest of his teammates, who are presently distracted talking to other finalists, and who he doesn’t trust to make any decisions, let alone this one.

Patrick nods then, something too forced and careful about his smile. “Yeah. I get that.”

“But the team captain makes the final decision,” David blurts. He has no idea what he’s saying.

“Yeah?” Patrick’s eyebrow does a thing that should be difficult for a non-existent eyebrow to accomplish, which is to convey both surprise and bone deep certainty. His eyelashes are also absurdly long, which is not relevant in evaluating a potential trivia teammate, but the pale eyebrow with feats of communicative strength drew him there. It can’t be helped. David is not responsible for what the pale eyebrows have commanded. He hopes they don’t tell him to do anything else.

“Yeah, I’ll, uh, let you know.” David crosses his arms and uncrosses them and wonders if he can still disappear into the ether like he wanted to earlier. “Thank you, though, for today. The win. However we got it. Thank you.”

“Thanks, I had fun. Can’t think of a better way to make five hundred bucks, right?” Patrick smiles. “It was nice to meet you, David.”

David makes a noise in response that might be agreement or might be total incomprehensible nonsense, but it seems like enough for Patrick, and he gives a half-wave of goodbye.

As Patrick turns to exit, David realizes that Gwen was correct about more than just her selection of the random baseball field loiterer; Patrick definitely has an ass that will not quit.


	2. Chapter 2

“So what are you going to do?” 

David looks up at Stevie, who is currently starfished on his bed in their cramped, too tiny apartment, her dark hair splashed over his pillows like a mermaid. He’s sort of scrunched near her hip and her fingernails are scratching rhythmically against his scalp and it feels good. They’ve been celebrating their win with a fifth of whiskey and a joint, and they’ve arrived at the point in the evening where everything is either terrible or hilarious. David’s stomach hurts from laughing, but he can’t quite remember what he thought was funny. 

“I'm going to sleep, probably,” David responds, fascinated by a rivet on the pocket of Stevie’s jeans. 

“No, not sleep.” She squawks, more of an irritated parakeet than person. _Ooh, what if Stevie had wings?_ “What are you doing about Patrick?”

David’s limbs are heavy but also very liquid and when he moves, he isn’t sure if the bed is moving or if he is. He does his best approximation of a full body roll so that he can peer more directly at Stevie. She’s beautiful and it makes him think about how it felt when he used to kiss her. It felt nice usually, but this, what they have now is nicer. Nicer than not having anything at all. And kissing Stevie isn’t the question. Kissing Patrick...isn’t really a question either, actually.

“I don’t know,” he groans.

“Is this about trivia or is this not about trivia?” Stevie asks. David doesn’t like it when she’s smarter than he is, or when she manages to uncover the thoughts he’s attempting to hide. Granted, she also caught him watching sweet-faced Patrick’s YouTube video in the bar bathroom after Patrick left, so he hasn’t exactly been impenetrable when it comes to disguising his feelings.

David makes a sound he hopes is casually dismissive. 

“You’re the one who insists we need six people. And since Gwen isn’t coming back anytime soon, Patrick is perfect for us. And he’s easy to—”

“Do not finish that sentence.” David warns.

Stevie makes an impressive show of feigning innocence. “Did you look at him? He’s got those thick musician’s fore—”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” 

“Remind you what? That the man who just joined our team has...arms? Most of our teammates have arms, David, and they’ve never bothered you before.”

“Stop it.”

“Or is the fact that he’s a musician? And at any moment, he could look you in the eye and strum a little ditty and very earnestly just—”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here, but I’ll thank you to stop.”

“So I should keep going?” Stevie gives David’s chest a poke. “And the very worst that happens is you don’t...thank me? Because you spend so much time thanking me for—”

“Stevie, I don’t think I can do this.” David interrupts plaintively. 

Today with Patrick was one thing. It was a few hours and a few hundred dollars worth of...arms and curls and paper frogs and actual knowledge about all kinds of weird and varied things, like a cute, friendly deck of Trivial Pursuit cards come to life. It wasn’t weeks and weeks of trying to avoid making an even bigger fool of himself than he had today while he decided whether or not he should actually be interested in Patrick. 

It’s not David’s fault that Patrick is interesting. If that is what the kids are calling it these days.

Stevie plants her palms on the bed with deliberate slowness and pushes herself up so that she and David can both rearrange themselves and sit knee to knee. “You don’t have to do this. We don’t have to go to The Paradigm. It’s not mandatory.”

“It’s fifty thousand dollars and we have a shot. We have to go.” David says, resigned. “He needs to be on the team.”

“So why is the vein in your eye twitching?”

David hopes that the look he gives her properly conveys his displeasure about the direction the evening has taken. 

Undeterred, Stevie continues. “David, just call him. Just call and say—” she starts a clumsy crawl over his lap to reach for his phone. “Say, ‘Hi Patrick, this is David. I think you should join our trivia team. Okay, ciao!’”

“I don’t...I would never say that. _Ciao_ ,” David shudders.

“Well, you just did.” Stevie prods his bicep with the phone. “C’mon, David, call him. It won’t kill you.”

“It might,” David whines, but Stevie is unmoved.

“Do it. I like this for you.” Stevie stage-whispers as she clambers off the bed and starts to leave, presumably so David can make the call. “It’s four months of your life. Call him.”

But once his phone is unlocked, David finds himself in the browser app, typing in “Patrick Brewer Button Downs” and watching as search results flood his screen.

There are a few articles with headlines about a possible breakup. He clicks on _Button’s_ _‘Hole’ Lot of Trouble?_ and _Button Down the Hatches, Are the_ _Breakup_ _Rumors True?_ The articles are mostly blog posts about The Button Downs cancelling tour dates and stepping back from touring, which is what he already knew. None include interviews or direct quotes from anyone in the band, although there are comments speculating that Patrick coming out the year before had caused the relationship between Patrick and Rachel, his ex-fiancée and the band’s drummer, to become strained. 

If David came looking for red flags, he doesn’t know if he’s found them here, but he still isn’t ready to dial the number on the business card he’s holding.

It’s overwhelming to think about his options, to have to parse them out and examine them unaided, so David drinks another glass of whiskey while he waits for his newly applied beeswax mask to set. By the time he’s rinsed and showered and exfoliated an hour later, the only decision he’s made is that he’s absolutely too sober, so he drinks more of the whiskey before settling back into his bed.

There’s a slideshow of the day playing over and over in his head that is mostly Patrick, a little bit of the artichoke travesty, and a lot of blurry confusion. Somewhere amongst the YouTube rabbit holes, the forearms of steel, and the quick wit is a trivia teammate whose presence can benefit everyone, including David. 

David needs to call, he thinks he wants to call, but since he can’t seem to work up the nerve, he isn’t calling. 

It’s stupid how David needs to be poked and prodded to put himself out there; it’s clear that Patrick wants to be on the team. What is less clear, however, is how David plans to navigate that, but he’s going to have to figure it out if he wants to win fifty thousand dollars and do what he needs to do to move forward in this life.

The Patrickness of it all, well, he’ll deal with that if it comes.

* * *

David is at the Art House arranging candy in the snack case alphabetically by color-story when he looks up to find Patrick leaning casually on his counter. Dressed in jeans and a heather gray henley, his curly hair damp from an afternoon rain shower, Patrick looks impossibly good. And he’s holding a small white bakery box, which is even better.

“So I got your messages,” Patrick smirks.

David gives him a puzzled look. He has no recollection of doing any such thing. He woke up this morning with a raging headache, mouth tasting like dirty socks and self-pity, phone dead on the pillow next to him. He hasn’t even had the time to charge it since he woke up late and had to run out the door for work. “What messages?”

“The messages you left me about joining the team?” Now it is Patrick’s turn to look puzzled. David doesn’t want to admit how cute a furrowed non-brow seems on his former-maybe-future teammate, but it does. He’s like a woodland creature just getting his bearings after a long, frozen winter.

“I didn’t leave you any messages.” Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. “I left you messages.” 

“Eight, in fact. Varying degrees of coherence, of course, but I pieced them together and I’m pretty sure that I’m the sixth member of Shut the Front Dior now.” Patrick rubs casually at the corner of the glass candy case with the edge of his fingernail, the cord of his neck exposed as he briefly glances down. David finds himself battling not to stare directly at it, like an eclipse. “There might have also been mention of a free set of Ginsu knives?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that was a limited time offer.” David gestures with the box of Smarties that he’s holding and is met with Patrick’s dispirited face. “No, I mean, the Ginsu—the knives. I am fresh out of knives.” David hopes one day that he can look back on this conversation and laugh, but it seems unlikely. _Fresh out of knives._ What the actual fuck.

“Okay.” A smile tugs at Patrick’s lip as he rubs absently at his wrist. “Well. I had an old shoe and an aluminum can I wanted to slice and dice, but I will try to contain my disappointment.”

“I wish you would,” David replies and he has no idea what they’re talking about anymore. Did Patrick come all the way down here to talk about knives? David’s only known him for a few hours but it certainly sounds like something he’d do. “We play at the Café on Tuesdays and The Wobbly Elm on Thursdays. If you want to come, you should.” 

Patrick smiles, and David wants to say that he’s not paying attention to every inch of Patrick’s face, he’s not, but...Patrick’s ears do this—they wiggle. Patrick’s ears wiggle when he smiles, before he smiles, a telegraph of—no, more of a pulley system, as if the ears are responsible for raising the corners of Patrick’s lips like a brightly colored flag. “I wouldn’t miss it.” 

“Mmm,” David replies, not sure what to do with his face or his hands. His chest is doing something odd; he’s feeling something rise in it, something that bubbles and fizzes. He’d like it to stop before he does something even more ridiculous like offer Patrick an informercial-sponsored food dehydrator or share any other thought that is currently inhabiting his brain, because they’re all up there, pinging around without proper oversight. 

“I’ll let you get back to work then,” Patrick gives a little waggle of his pale eyebrows and his standard half-wave of goodbye then, pushing the bakery box closer to David and pivoting on his heel to leave.

Patrick is barely to the door before David is peering inside the white box he’s just been left. There’s a note inside, in neat block handwriting, that reads: _Ivan refused to make an avocado butter tart for reasons I don’t entirely disagree with, but here’s a matcha one instead. Thanks for the invite. -P_

David is turned around and fiddling with the popcorn machine to hide his smile when he hears Patrick call: “Ciao!”

* * *

That Tuesday, David is the first member of his team to arrive at the Café. It isn’t unusual, since David always arrives first.

Until he found this trivia league—by accident, on a Taco Tuesday—he had almost forgotten how much he liked to be in charge of things. Well, he hasn’t forgotten, because he spends most days mentally detailing how much better things would be if he could engineer and design his own life and the lives of those around him. It doesn’t mean he wants people to know.

Which is why he gets here before the other teams do, so he can rearrange the tables for enhanced foot traffic flow. And apparently Patrick likes to be early too.

Patrick is early and Patrick is eager and Patrick doesn’t mind manual labor, even though he does seem to be wearing a child-sized shirt. It hugs every lean, muscular ripple of his torso, even if the odd sleeve length is halfway to unacceptable. On him, it works.

It works almost too well, as David almost face-plants into the wall as he contemplates the second button of the shirt straining valiantly over Patrick’s pectoral muscle. That button deserves a Nobel prize for physics, his brain unhelpfully supplies, and David only shushes it because the entire weird little shirt just attempted manslaughter.

“So, are you some kind of glutton for punishment?” David asks, regaining his composure as he pushes the last chair under the table he and Patrick just moved. He can’t decide if he’s sweating from rearranging furniture or from having noticed that the cuff on Patrick’s sleeve has a contrasting trim. 

Patrick half-laughs, surprised. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s just that people aren’t usually this eager to play trivia with us.”

“No?” Patrick’s hands ease into the pockets of his well-fitting jeans and David’s eyes just seem to want to follow them. “I guess I’m not just here for trivia.”

David swallows hard. He can push this, and risk propelling Patrick straight out the leaded glass doors, or he can hold back, and dwell a little longer in the mystery of Why Patrick Cares. He makes an attempt because self-destruction isn’t as much of a hobby as it is a finely honed skill. “So it’s for the moderately edible cuisine, then.” 

“Well, I did hear that their table-side guacamole is excellent,” Patrick says, deadpan. 

David is certain that his eyebrows are currently wreaking havoc in his hairline. “I hope you know that there will be a day when you don’t find that as funny as you do.”

“Oh will there?” Patrick sits down, sticking his pencil behind his ear. David may imagine it but he thinks Patrick licks his lips. “I mean, I don’t know. The Great Avocado-Artichoke Incident may go down as one of my favorite moments of 2017. Well, behind the Button Downs winning Best Group at the JUNO awards and the Blue Jays beating the Angels in extra innings. At an away game.” David has no idea what half those words mean but he notices that Patrick definitely licks his lips after he says them. Perhaps Patrick is in need of a stronger lip balm. “But you totally ousted the viral video of that baby trying wasabi for the first time right out of third place.”

“Thanks so much.” He wants to be deeply annoyed but surprisingly, the teasing is more normalizing than it is hurtful. And from the look in Patrick’s eye, it seems almost fond. “Such a personal victory.”

They settle in at the table that David ensures belongs to Shut the Front Dior, thanks to its proximity to Ray’s hosting table, the ideal angle of the speakers, and the ability to see every inch of the floor when people are turning in their answers. Everything about it is correct, and sitting anywhere else is not only incorrect, but detrimental to both team morale and performance. Patrick doesn’t even blink when David tells him that he once told We Drink and We Know Things to vacate the space when they inadvertently sat down there.

“Rookie move on their part, really,” Patrick says. “I totally get it. Game day superstition. I used to wear the same pair of socks to every baseball game in high school.” When he catches David’s look of horror, he amends, stumbling a little over his words, “Clean, of course. I definitely washed them.”

David thinks he likes Patrick more when he’s a little bumbling.

They settle in with drinks and the plate of mozzarella sticks that David ordered and a questionably oxidized bowl of guacamole that Patrick insisted upon despite Twyla suggesting every other dish on the menu first. Patrick studies David over their distinctly unappetizing appetizers, his face doing what it does: disarming David with its openness. 

“So what is all this?” David asks. Patrick seems to also have come prepared tonight with a pencil, notebook, and what looks like an illustrated pie chart and set of graphs, but that cannot be right. 

“I went to Ray’s website, which by the way, could really use some updating because I think he might still be using MS-DOS.” Patrick explains, moving his papers around like he’s setting up a presentation in an important board meeting. It’s disconcerting that David can’t seem to take his eyes off him and he’s talking about...websites. “Did you know that he actually posts all the questions from previous games?”

David wants to be able to say yes, he knows that, but he didn’t. He didn’t even know that Ray had a website. “I did not.”

Patrick looks so pleased at the prospect of something as simple as trivia resources that it almost feels contagious. 

It’s hard to imagine someone being this committed to anything, straight away, but it seems like Patrick is, and he wants to make himself useful, a thought David wishes would occur to several other of his teammates as well. As it stands, Patrick pushes the pie chart forward, toward David, but around the marinara. The colorful graphs turn out to be a list of percentages that Patrick explains are the statistical probabilities of different categories being used, but the pie chart makes David the hungriest. For pie, not Patrick. Maybe a little bit for Patrick. It is a very impressive pie chart. 

“Who made this for you?” David demands.

Patrick is confused. “I—I did?”

“Aren’t you a musician?”

“Yes.” 

“And part of that involves calculating statistical probability?”

“Very little of it, actually, even though a lot of music is math. But that’s not what—” Patrick jabs a little impatiently at the chart. “Here. Look. This represents all the categories and how often they are used and then the list of questions by category and then sub categorized by subject matter and answer. Have you ever noticed how many Movie questions are about _Back to the Future_?”

David groans. It is the worst part of the game, truly. “So many.” 

“Well, Michael J. Fox is a national treasure, I get it. But I noticed that those questions require a much higher level of detail.” 

He’s not wrong. Ray has practically asked what brand of toothpaste characters use in the film, but for other subjects in the same category, the questions are far broader. 

“Yes. They’re awful,” David reluctantly agrees. As team captain, he should be encouraging these displays of effort and sportsmanship. It has nothing to do with the fact that he might...be interested in Patrick.

Patrick grins impishly at David, a dimple David hasn’t noticed before revealing itself slowly. And while the dimple is unconscionably cute, it really has nothing on his drive to win and how it aligns with David’s. “And I think over the course of the season, I can start to keep track of the questions Ray asks, and sort of chart our team’s progress. See where we need more work, see where we have things covered.”

“And the things we don’t have covered, we should study.” 

David doesn’t know how he made that leap, exactly. He does well at trivia because he made the well-intentioned mistake of earning a degree in the arts and because he currently has a lackluster social life with ample time to read. He doesn’t study. But Patrick is looking at him with a glint of possibility in his eye and it makes David think studying sounds like exactly the thing they need. It is disconcerting how many things Patrick can make seem like a good idea without even technically suggesting them. 

Patrick nods. “Yes, exactly.” 

“But at some point you’re going to explain to me how you knew how to do this, though.” He taps the pile of paper in front of him.

“Stacked bar graphs?” Patrick asks. David is artistic, or at least he thinks he is, but what Patrick just produced is its own form of art. And if David later slides that graph under his new trivia notebook to take home with him, he will swear it was an accident.

“Any of it.”

Patrick clears his throat, skin flushing. “For this one, I watched a YouTube tutorial. It’s just an Excel macro—” 

But Patrick is interrupted when Stevie and Ted arrive with Tennessee in tow, already arguing about whether or not they’re going to go out afterward. By then, George has emerged from the Café’s kitchen to join them and Ray is announcing the start of the game. 

The first round categories are History, Opera, and Animals, which elicits a whoop from Ted. David has already talked to him about the too ardent whooping, but he’s hard to contain when he’s excited. Plus, the unexpected volume startles Patrick enough that it trends into amusing.

“Derived from a word meaning “great names” in Japanese, what group of feudal landowners commanded the samurai to keep justice and peace in the towns of a province?”

“Is that a shogun?” Patrick asks, frowning a bit. He unthreads his fingers and brings his left arm closer to his body, making and unmaking a fist, as his right moves to toy with the edge of the scoring sheet. “I feel like shogun and samurai are connected.”

“That sounds right,” David jumps in, not sure if he should be concentrating on why Patrick’s face just shuttered or on Japanese feudal lords. “But I feel like there’s another classification too…”

“Oh,” Stevie pokes David’s arm. “What about a daimayo, though? Remember when you went to see the cherry blossoms in Elm Valley like a pervert—”

“Did you just say pervert?” Patrick raises an eyebrow.

“No, well, yes, but it’s a joke.” David glares at Stevie. “But she's right, the exhibit was supposed to be a smaller scale of this temple outside Kyoto where the daimyo ordered hundreds of cherry blossoms to be planted—”

“—Ooh, I think we visited that temple while we were on tour,” Patrick adds, closing his eyes briefly as if he’s picturing the garden itself. Maybe if they win the Paradigm, David could see the real thing again, too. "But I think...I think daimyo might be what we’re looking for here.”

“Not shogun?” David realizes that there is something to be said for not knowing enough about a subject, so there are fewer ways to go wrong.

“No. Go with daimyo.” Patrick considers for another moment. “I mean, I wouldn’t bet six on it, since we have Animals coming up and as far as Opera goes, I’m pretty hit and miss unless it’s Mozart or _Carmen._ ” 

David writes _daimyo_ on the answer pad and bets three points, showing Stevie, George, and Tennessee before he turns it in. They have to institute a proofreading policy since the incident at Finals, and that’s only slightly mortifying. 

Ted glimpses at the answer over Patrick’s shoulder. “Oh yeah, they're a daimyo a dozen!”

Everyone groans as Ted leaves to run the answer over to Ray's table before the theme from _Karate Kid_ ends. When Ray reads the answer, they’re correct, and so are their next two answers, thanks to _The Magic Flute_ and Ted’s extensive and terrifying knowledge of the platypus.

By the second half, Patrick’s guacamole is still untouched, and they’re in the lead by six points. A small line of paper cranes rims Patrick’s empty appetizer plate and one crane is artfully hanging from the lip of David’s smoothie glass.

“You know, I don’t think that your little bowl of spite dip is going to get more edible the longer it sits there,” David points to the lump in the bowl in front of Patrick, who appears to be diligently working on creating a larger sized crane out of an extra scoresheet. David arches an eyebrow for greater impact, he hopes. “Or are you not enjoying it?”

Patrick looks up from his design, the hint of a smile curling at the corner of his lip. “No, it’s very good. You should try it,” Patrick pushes the bowl toward David, who crowds closer to Stevie in order to escape its creeping horror. It’s brown but it’s also...not brown, and it definitely isn’t green. 

“David, are you _afraid_ of Patrick’s appetizer?” Stevie pries David’s fingers off of her elbow as she looks down into the bowl, her own lip curled in disgust. “Okay, I think this past the point of a joke and heading into a health code violation.”

David tries not to gag as he shrouds the bowl with his napkin and glares at Patrick, who seems to be enjoying David’s visceral reaction more than he should. David knows he’s being specifically targeted but he isn’t sure if Patrick is trying to pull his pigtails or steal his lunch money or just generally confound him. “Okay, you’ve made your point.”

“What point?” Patrick asks and deftly snatches one of the mozzarella sticks from David’s plate with a flick of his wrist. David momentarily considers what other things those wrists and hands might be capable of but he shakes it off before he’s mooning too conspicuously over Patrick, at Patrick. Who is chewing and looking just as self-satisfied as he had when he answered the question about _Spring Awakening_ earlier, even though David has dated both Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele. 

Stevie _oohs_. “I’ll have you know that lesser men have lost fingers taking food off of David’s plate.”

“I guess I’m not a lesser man, then.” Patrick answers without missing a beat, his face blossoming with a cat-that-ate-the-cream, slyest of smiles.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” David volleys, and hopes Patrick can still hear him over the incessant beating of David’s buoyant and inconveniently all-too-eager heart.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, David and Patrick establish a routine. Patrick meets David at the venue early and they strategize, heads bent together over Patrick-prepared statistical analysis until the rest of their team arrives. Occasionally, Patrick brings more spreadsheets, each one more layered and involved than the first, but usually he shows David websites on his phone or brings printed lists of questions that he thinks will aid them in their quest for increased trivial knowledge. 

And it isn’t all trivia. Patrick isn’t much of a sharer, but he’s always interested in David’s opinions on movies and music and books, and he pushes and pokes and teases his way into some of David’s loftier ideas about just how many things at the Art House could be improved if only David had complete creative control.

“I’d actually love to do a Summer Series, with local mixed media artists who have been inspired by the cinematic arts,” David tells Patrick one Thursday at the Wobbly Elm as they wait for their other teammates to arrive. “Tie in the movies with the art pieces, do some rebranding, bring in more upscale concessions to give it more of a gallery feel—” David pauses. “I can’t even get Vic to show an Isabelle Huppert double feature. How am I going to get a curated aesthetic experience happening under that kind of narrow dictatorship?”

“I’m just spitballing here, David, but I am going to guess it involves having an innovative idea and then making it happen. I’m just the music guy, but it’s a really smart idea.” 

David basks briefly in the warm rays of Patrick’s attention just long enough to realize that he’s slowly allowing Patrick to know more of him than just correct answers and proper table placement. Which feels a lot more comfortable than he expected it to previously.

David is amassing his own collection of Patrick-related trivia, which he extracts in bits and pieces during questions, or in the time between them. He learns that Patrick earned his business degree online while touring with his band because his parents didn’t understand why he couldn’t do both. He knows that Patrick is highly suspicious of marshmallows (“nothing that fluffy should be trusted,”) and that Patrick is good at answering Greek mythology questions because he used to name his Sims horses after the gods (Apollo and Artemis were his personal favorites). David has also observed that Patrick knows lyrics and sings along to almost every song Ray plays between questions (his taste is wildly variable; he seems to love everything from Neil Young to Lizzo to Dolly Parton and an ungodly amount of showtunes in between). 

There is also the relentless way Patrick teases, like the time he wrote out an answer illegibly enough that David was forced to shout “lusty live sausages,” to Ray because even he couldn’t read it. Or how his hands are always working, his deft fingers folding and creasing and fluffing, resulting in David amassing his own small pond of tiny paper frogs and birds and fish. 

Granted, Patrick continues to click his pen and jiggle his leg and becomes insufferably smug when he’s proven right (David does not want to discuss human anatomy with Patrick ever ever again after that extremely embarrassing ‘ureter’ incident). Whenever Patrick draws anything remotely geographical to test its accuracy, it looks more like genitalia (“Is that a Georgia O’Keefe?” “No, it’s the Suez Canal!” “Is that anywhere near the fallopian tube?”) but this is also the most fun David has had with his trivia team since its inception. 

“I think we’re gonna need that extra practice,” Patrick says to David as the team is collecting their things to leave after a narrow and almost undeserved victory over Ronnie’s Home Runners. Patrick and David are the last ones at the table; Stevie has apparently plucked a social life right out of thin air and tonight she has abandoned David with both Patrick and the tab. It’s fine though because Patrick will give David a ride home like he usually does, another welcome addition to their newfound routine.

They fall into step as they walk toward the exit, the crisp fall air beckoning from the doorway. 

Patrick is riled up, which has been par for the course thanks to some of the questions that Ray has been asking lately.

“How were we supposed to know the name of the mall in _Back to the Future Part II_? That information is absolutely arcane!” David has also gathered that Patrick uses words like _arcane_ when he’s especially incensed. It shouldn’t be as adorable as it is. “Now we’re going to have to watch the entire trilogy.” 

“Oh? The trilogy?” David repeats. He has gathered, through extensive observation, that the more Patrick gets worked up about something, the more entertaining it is for David. It's a simple cause and effect.

The backs of Patrick’s knuckles brush against David’s hand as they start toward the exit and a warm, satisfying shiver rolls through him. David is barely listening because he’s distracted by how much he likes it and wants to feel it again. When he’s able to focus back in, Patrick isn’t much further into his rant than where he’d accidentally checked out.

“At this point, more than fifteen percent of the Movie questions Ray asks are related to _Back to the Future_ in some way. He even managed to work it into a Products question about Kit Kat clocks last week. Pretty soon, he’ll have to rebrand this as theme trivia.”

“I mean, I’m eighty-seven percent in agreement with that.” David says as they have to stop to avoid bottlenecking at the door. Patrick’s hand rises to the small of David’s back as they hesitate in the small vestibule, allowing others to pass, and it drops as they move through.

“Yeah, well, I think we should—” Patrick ends up getting waylaid by Officer Cornwall, who has started inviting Patrick fishing with his trivia team often enough that it makes David suspicious they’re somehow pumping Patrick for statistical analysis. Definitely one of the more niche things that David has ever been potentially jealous of, but he prefers to consider those details rather than why he’s even jealous at all.

Arms crossed, David waits by Patrick’s spectacularly unassuming silver Corolla, a car that could not be more Patrick if it wore a blue button down and mercilessly teased David about avocados, or really any other thing.

Patrick finally extracts himself from the play-by-play of the game and then performs his usual choreography of opening David’s door and waiting for him to slide in. 

It doesn’t take long to drive to David’s and Patrick spends most of the drive tapping out the beat to songs as they come on the radio and humming under his breath. Usually they would do their post-mortem of the game, but tonight was such a borderline disaster that it feels safer just to pretend it didn’t happen, or chalk it up to one of Patrick's statistical anomalies. 

When they pull up in front of David and Stevie’s building, Patrick rests his hand on David’s arm before he can go to open the car door. Patrick, looking somewhat stern, takes a deep breath and David feels his chest tighten, bracing himself for whatever he thinks might be coming. 

“We have to do something about these _Back to the Future_ questions,” Patrick announces, biting his lip. “Soon.”

At this point, David would build a flux capacitor himself if it means winning the money, but also if it means that Patrick keeps casually touching his arm. Patrick’s eyes glance down where his fingers have taken up residence and under the glow from the streetlights, a sweet blush seems to creep up his neck.

“I think we need to finally bite the bullet and watch these movies. Ray is going to bury us in the minutiae if we don’t,” he continues. “You can come to my place. We’ll make a night of it.”

David can feel his head moving in a circular fashion. It might be agreement or it might be an aneurysm but Patrick’s gentle grin seems to indicate the former. “Hmm,” he says, just barely catching the moment when Patrick’s face goes from hopeful to triumphant.

“Great. I’ll text you my address.” Patrick’s voice is bright. “Saturday? Sevenish?”

“Snacks?” David ventures, again unable to form appropriate responses. 

“Snacks are never a question, David,” Patrick says, patting David’s arm reassuringly. “I’ll see you at seven.”

“Seven.” David repeats dumbly. 

It takes until Patrick’s tail lights have faded from view for David to realize that watching a movie, even as a fact-finding mission, is not a two-person job. And that David is going to Patrick’s apartment, alone, to do so.

Snacks or no snacks, David is fairly certain that he just unwittingly agreed to a date. Or that a date just unwittingly agreed to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the spirit of Ted, no one does it beta than Distractivate, so thank you for listening to me whine and helping me make this better. Thank you also to the crowd at the Rosebudd for suggesting trivia topics of Japanese feudal lords, Mozart operas, and hedgehogs/platypi this afternoon as I was feverishly editing. My brain may have accidentally exploded while attempting to fill these requests. I also apologize to the memory of Toyotomi Hideyoshi for Ted's pun about his title. Also, bless vivianblakesunrisebay for brainstorming an ending with me when I realized I hated my last paragraph.
> 
> And for Patrick, here is the video, which may also be from 2018. Results were inconclusive and the internet is dumb. Time has no meaning, etc. [Baby Regretting Wasabi](https://youtu.be/eQqnJGGMA-0)


	3. Chapter 3

As David stands in front of the door to Patrick's third floor walk-up for an evening of _Back to the Future_ , his heart threatens to take up residence in his throat.

_This is not a date. This is not a date. This is not a date. This might be a date and it's okay if it is but David, this is not a date._

David thinks he liked it better when he wasn't fully cognizant that he was interested in Patrick as more than a trivia partner. It's just that things have become needlessly, overwhelmingly complicated.

David has spent the better part of the past few days reviewing his past few interactions with Patrick and mining them for clues. Excavating them, really, trying to unearth whether or not Patrick believes watching the movie together is a platonic gathering of teammates in pursuit of a shared goal or if it’s the beginning of something less platonic, or if it is a prelude to sex, which. David would enjoy that. He’s actively rooting for either of the last two scenarios, but has also not been brave enough to ask.

Not knowing certainly made choosing an ensemble difficult, so he opted for black jeans with a less complex zipper-system and a softer, more touchable sweater; nothing deceptively scratchy, in case there’s prolonged...contact. He probably could have texted Patrick and offhandedly asked, _Hey, side note, will there be prolonged touching? Would you like some?_ Okay, so he definitely wore his sleekest boxer briefs just in case.

He’s late. Fashionably so, just ten minutes. In fact, he paused considerably on a corner three blocks away as he walked here, waiting for an extra few minutes to cross the street so as not to appear overly eager. Which he is, but he also doesn’t want to appear anything but casual, in case this isn’t a date, which now that he thinks about it, is probably the case. If it were a date, Patrick would have...picked him up. Or articulated the words: “How about a date?” Do people say things like that? Patrick probably does. He is always so specific all the time.

There is also the miniscule chance that this _is_ a date and now David is woefully underprepared. Obviously he’s dressed appropriately but he should have brought a bottle of wine, or maybe some condoms or that nice artisanal lube he found at the Farmer’s Market in Elmdale last month. All items Patrick may have on hand, but in his defense: _is this a fucking date or isn’t it?_

He just needs to knock. That’s all. Because, date or not, Patrick is behind that door. Waiting. This is still a newer concept for David, the idea that he shouldn’t keep someone waiting.

Even from the hallway, David can smell the unpleasant odor of something burning. He knocks and Patrick answers the door in a blue v-neck sweater and his bare feet, holding a kitchen towel and looking...well, hot. Unfairly so, considering this isn’t a date. ( _Is it?_ ) In the apartment, a thin film of grey smoke billows over the kitchen area, which from this vantage point, is also the living area.

The apartment itself is small and...bare. It looks uninhabited, and if Patrick wasn’t standing in the middle of it looking endearingly befuddled, David would think he was touring an unoccupied unit. 

There’s a sleek gray-blue sofa and a midcentury-style chair and a bed and that’s...it. Not a wall hanging, not a picture frame, not a shot glass collection, nothing. David wonders if maybe his original serial killer-sociopath theory was correct. He’s about to inquire about the likelihood of Patrick’s closets being full of axes and plastic sheeting—Is the bathroom the kill room? It seems like access to a drain is paramount—when Patrick interrupts his inner panicky monologue.

“Hey, sorry about the smoke. My mom called while I was attempting to make popcorn on the stovetop for us and I, uh...” the acrid smell hanging in the air really finishes his thought for him. “I’m going to have to move to plan B; luckily, cheese is impossible to burn.” Patrick walks over to one of the low slung windows and throws it open. His sweater hitches up, revealing a pale sliver of skin over the waistband of his jeans that David cannot seem to look away from and would also very much like to touch. 

David puts his hands on his hips and nods very seriously in an attempt to dissuade himself from doing either. “Hmm, yes.”

Patrick crosses back into the tiny kitchenette. “Can I get you something to drink?” 

“Sure. Yes. Please.” David nods more deeply, choosing finally to contemplate the bare walls instead of bared Patrick for the sake of maybe-not-a-date decorum. “I must say, I am terribly impressed with the gallery-like austerity of your living quarters,” David waves his hand, apparently having tripped into an Elizabethan novel in his haste to stop ogling.

Patrick opens the cabinet and extracts a bottle of red wine. From where David stands, it looks like the label reads _Touched by Grapes._ “Thanks? When I was FaceTiming with my parents, my dad said it looked like I was renting space in a monastery.” 

“So are you...monastic?” For fuck’s sake. Did David just ask him if he’s celibate? “I mean, do you…” _have sex with people in your apartment?_ _Me specifically?_ Fucking brain-mouth connection. “You’re not…”

“Not a monk, last I checked.” Patrick holds up the corkscrew. “Hey, do you mind handling this? I forgot I put the brie in the oven and I might actually manage to burn cheese after all.”

They work side by side in the small space with David opening and pouring generous glasses of wine while Patrick finishes prepping the warm cheese. It’s domestic and cozy and even with a cloud of burnt popcorn and ambiguity looming over them, David is having a hard time wanting to be anywhere else. 

“Hey,” Patrick says, spooning apricot jam onto the cheese plate and bumping David a little with his hip as he blindly reaches into the silverware drawer to find a knife. “You’re my guest. Go make yourself comfortable, I can handle the rest.”

Patrick probably doesn’t realize what an impossible task that actually is for David, but he acquiesces in hopes that he can reunite with his composure by the time he gets to the sofa.

Perching on the edge of a cushion, it takes a few moments for David to register that there is no television. David doesn’t really follow sports, so he isn’t keeping score, but so far the date seems to be winning. Wine (check), snacks (check), previously agreed upon activity (check), not a monk (check), no television to watch the movie that was previously agreed upon (what the ever loving fuck). 

“So did you just want to keep the walls empty then? For fashion?” Minimalist aesthetics are very in right now, but Patrick hardly seems to care about trends, if everything else about him is any indication.

From his place behind the kitchen counter, Patrick follows David’s eyes around the stark room and squints. Maybe it’s just now dawning on him that he has choices he could make. “No, it’s more that I don’t really know how long I’ll be here. Didn’t really make sense to hang up a bunch of stuff I’ll have to take down in a few months.”

Patrick is practical, that’s all, and David tries not to hear the _few months_ like it is some kind of clock, counting down. 

Maybe that’s why this isn’t a date, because Patrick doesn’t plan on staying here. It’s fine, David tells himself, Patrick doesn’t need to stay here forever. No one _wants_ to stay here unless they don’t have a viable alternative; Patrick definitely seems like someone who has options. 

So Patrick prepares their snacks and David is across the room, physically compelling himself not to go rifling through medicine cabinets and drawers. He doesn’t know what he thinks he’ll find, only that he definitely wants to look. 

Instead he conducts a cursory, less invasive examination of the space from his place on the sofa, hands clasped firmly in his lap. Behind the living space is the bedroom nook with a queen-sized bed that is covered in a staid gray bedspread and black and white-textured throw pillows. Only briefly does David consider whether or not he should try to direct the evening toward that area, since he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself (or find out the true thread count on those sheets; the pillowcases appear almost burlap in nature). On the bedside table sits the only ornamentation in the entire apartment: colorfully folded origami paper creations of all kinds, identical to what Patrick regularly produces at the table as they formulate trivia answers together but in a variety of different patterns and hues.

There are cranes and frogs like David is used to seeing, but there are other animals as well as intricately folded boxes and stars and flowers lined up in rows. The designs vary in complexity, but they’re consistent and neat and well-kept. It’s a little origami museum, but David isn’t sure if he’s been granted admission to view them. 

Patrick approaches, carrying the ceramic serving plate from the kitchen. David likes how Patrick is treating him like a guest and not like the guy who won’t let him use the team stamp to mark the answer pads because that is David’s job, even though that’s probably what he would deserve. “I assume you like your cheese medium-rare,” Patrick says, presenting the plate in front of David’s nose with a flourish. “The same way you like your sliders.” 

“Mhmm, I take my cheese tartare, thanks.” David hungrily surveys the cheese and crackers that Patrick has carefully arranged around a small bowl of tapenade and a bunch of fresh red grapes. 

It’s just the kind of snack you’d prepare for a date, which this is still not. It can’t be. _It could be_ . David makes the mistake of looking up at Patrick and Patrick is definitely looking at David’s lips. If not at his lips, then in the vicinity of his lips, and that means...what exactly? David has an expressive mouth; a big mouth, he knows. Maybe Patrick is just marvelling at how someone with a mouth as big and as expressive as David’s never says anything that _means_ anything. David wonders that all the time.

But David is also ravenous from both rabid curiosity and the anxiety of participating in a poorly-defined social situation, so he dives into the cheese before Patrick even manages to set it down on the small coffee table. He realizes too late that Patrick definitely intended the food for during-movie consumption, but Patrick takes David’s terrified food-grabbing in stride, politely handing him a napkin.

David chews and tries not to guzzle his wine while Patrick settles onto the cushion next to his, face bright and interested. “So how long have you and Stevie been dating?”

Once he’s sufficiently cleared his own airway, eyes watering, David chokes out, “We aren’t?” He doesn’t know why it sounds like a question. 

Patrick attempts to help dislodge David’s trapped snack with a brisk pat but his hand still lingers warm and steady once his airway is clear. “Oh, no. I just...you guys bicker like an old married couple and you live—”

“Yes, I mean, we live—together. That’s a money thing and a friend thing, but we definitely aren’t—dating. I don’t want any of that.” Except for the time when he did want exactly that. Maybe he should tell Patrick that he prioritized his friendship with Stevie over their sexual relationship. Like it’s an entry on his CV where he can demonstrate having learned a new marketable skill. He decides to go with leaving things more open-ended, in the interest of not allowing any newly disclosed information to backfire spectacularly on him. “I mean, we did date, once, but we’re better this way. Not dating.” 

It is hard to say what happens on Patrick’s face just then, if it is relief or if it is fond amusement or if it is nothing at all. “Ah. Makes sense.” He nods and smiles, popping the rest of a cracker into his mouth. He doesn’t choke the way David did, so David concludes the reaction is neutral. 

David looks around again, eyes training back on the only pop of color in the room. “So, is all the folded paper part of your songwriting process or do you just need something more concentrated to do with your hands?”

Patrick’s jaw tightens and he fumbles the grape he was wrestling away from the stem. “No, it’s more of a hobby, I guess.”

It’s obvious that isn’t the whole story; David understands how hard it is to want to tell the whole story, especially when you aren’t certain of your audience. He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to show Patrick he’s a safe audience, but he wants to be. 

“You’re good at it,” David encourages.

Patrick makes a noncommittal noise but gives David a teasing smile. “Yeah. They seem to disappear off the table when I make them.”

“Okay, but I’ve definitely seen Ted walk away with more than a few, so don’t accuse me.”

“At least Ted asks if he can have them,” Patrick teases back and it’s that same fondness that David reads in him every time they talk lately. Patrick glances down at David's empty napkin and holds up the plate. “More cheese?” 

David shakes his head, declining. 

Patrick is still looking at him, still at David’s lips, in fact, and he moves forward just a bit as he sets the plate back down. _He’s going to kiss you_ , David thinks, and his brain erupts with all manner of desperate warnings: blinking, beeping, airhorns, white noise. Patrick’s hand is in the air between their two faces and he’s leaning in, eyes never wavering from David’s mouth. David doesn’t think he’s breathing, doesn’t think he knows his own name, because all he can focus on is the hand drawing closer. Maybe Patrick’s hand will cup his face, or his neck, or just lightly guide his jaw…

The corner of Patrick’s mouth is curved, something light and soft. “Hey,” he says, his voice low. “You have a crumb right,” his thumb skims David’s cheek, “here.”

Hope (fear?) tumbles directly out of David’s chest and drops to his gut. Okay. Not kissing. Not a date. “Oh,” he breathes, disappointed. “Ew.”

“David, I—” Patrick starts, sitting back against the arm of the sofa and creating a new space between them. He seems distracted. “I’ve been—I haven’t been totally up front with you.”

“Okay.” David is still flustered, blinking slowly. He has no idea what the rest of his face is doing, but he hopes it isn’t off-putting. He is aware that his face is generally a flashing billboard and right now, he needs to be careful what he advertises. “Upfront about what?”

“Just…” Patrick gives David a beleaguered, deflated look and David finds himself inching closer to Patrick, who responds by holding his left hand in the air. “The paper art is to help with this.”

David is confused. “No, a good cuticle oil and a paraffin hand cream would help with—”

“No, not—wait, what’s wrong with my cuticles?” Patrick asks. When David shakes off the question, Patrick continues. “Anyway, I make those because they recommended it during my physio since I was, uh, destroying the stress balls they gave me.”

“Your physio?” Pieces start to fall into place...Patrick favoring his left hand, the occasional clumsiness, the way he’s always flexing and stretching his fingers, that little nervous clasping habit. “Oh. Your physio.”

“Yeah. It’s why...David, I haven’t told this to anyone and you can’t...you can’t repeat it.” 

“No, no, I wouldn’t.” David is all too aware of people who make promises and break them and he doesn’t intend to be one of those people to Patrick. 

“Okay.” Patrick smooths his hands nervously over the tops of his thighs. “It all started with buttons,” he says, his expression solemn.

David’s head jerks, almost involuntarily. “Excuse me?” 

“On stage, you know how I used to wear a button-down—”

“—actually, you wear a button- _up_. If you mean the shirts I see you wearing all the time, like that one,” David points to a blue shirt that hangs on the knob of Patrick’s closet door, “that is a button-up shirt.”

“So now I don’t know the name of my own band?” Patrick laughs, tired.

“No, you don’t know the right name for clothing. It has to do with—never mind that,” David squeezes his eyes shut in an effort to physically end his misplaced lecture. “Please continue.”

“Uh,” Patrick looks to David’s left, as if he is searching for an answer that is just out of his reach. “I just...I’d been having some pain, which is normal, I guess. I’d been playing guitar and piano since I was a kid and we'd been touring a lot. But then it was painful enough that I couldn’t button my shirt. Or hold my toothbrush. Or pick up my tea. Or, eventually, make chords on my guitar.” 

“Oh.” 

“Oh. Yeah.” Patrick is quiet for a moment. “We tried...everything. Holistic medicine, exercises, nerve blocks, acupuncture. It just didn’t get any better. So I had surgery recently to release the pressure on my median nerve.” He turns his left wrist over then, moving it over David’s lap, revealing a tiny incision scar running vertically over the vein where it meets his palm. 

David gingerly touches the side of Patrick’s wrist and they both watch David’s fingertips where they brush Patrick’s skin. David wonders if Patrick is noticing the same frisson of electricity that David does. It could explain why Patrick moves his arm away and why David feels it like a physical loss. “Did it help?”

Shaking his head, Patrick pulls the sleeve of his sweater down. “No, I don’t think so, since it still feels like my hand is either asleep or on fire most of the time. The doctors think maybe there is scar tissue and that’s why nothing seems to alleviate the pressure. Or maybe they haven’t gotten the diagnosis right yet.”

“So what does this mean?” David asks, trying to sound gentle. Patrick seems like he might need gentle right now. 

“I don’t know, really. Just that I’m here, for now. I can’t play. I can’t tour. And I know it’s hard to believe, but the Greater Elms area has some of the best osteopaths in the country.”

“Actually, nothing about this place surprises me anymore.” _Except you. You surprise me,_ David’s brain supplies and he almost physically waves away the thought like a winged insect buzzing too close to his ear.

“Yeah, I used to like surprises,'' he muses. “But I think I’m ready for a few less of them, y’know? I thought I’d be out on the road right now and I’m here, figuring stuff out.”

“Hmm,” David responds, finally allowing that little sliver of hope he had about kissing Patrick to sink down and away. Starting whatever David had been thinking of starting probably doesn’t fit with what Patrick needs right now. It’s fine. What they have now is nice, too. It’s not nothing. “Do you think it would help if I told you that where we’re going, you won’t need roads?”

Patrick gives a hollow laugh at David’s attempt to cheer him with the one line he can always seem to remember from _Back to the Future._ There’s a moment, then, when David can feel the invisible thread that connects them in the way that Patrick’s lip quirks and his eyes glint with what might look like promise. Before David can overthink it, he’s reaching for Patrick and pulling him in for a hug. 

Patrick’s arms come up around David’s back easily and he fits into David’s chest as neatly as he did when they were celebrating their championship win. This time, though, it is quiet and still enough that David can feel Patrick’s heartbeat through the thin material of his sweater, the sharp point of his chin where it hits David’s shoulder. David’s hands run tentatively over the jut of Patrick’s shoulder blades.

“And I don’t want to undermine the very real and vulnerable things that you’ve just told me, but it is important to me that you understand that shirt is not actually a button-down.”

“Fair enough,” Patrick chuckles into David’s shoulder. After a few more moments, Patrick pulls away, swiping at his face with the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry, David. You didn’t come here to listen to my tale of...whatever. We’re supposed to be watching—”

“I mean, we can watch the movie anytime if you want to, um, talk more,” David offers. 

“No,” Patrick says, sharper than David would have expected. “I mean. This is enough talking for tonight I think.” He recovers with an uncertain smile. “We should start the movie. Let me go grab the laptop.”

Ah, the lack of a television rears its impractical head. David’s palms are already starting to sweat at the idea of having Patrick right there, in his personal space, for several hours. The hug was good practice for how to potentially keep this platonic, but huddling around a small screen seems... “Is there more wine?” David almost squeaks.

Patrick nods and goes to the kitchen for the bottle. They refill drinks and snacks and after handing David the computer, Patrick disappears into the bathroom for a few minutes. David attempts to settle on the sofa in a way that projects the opposite of what is currently happening inside of himself, which is a fucking miasma of conflicting emotions. 

So. Casual and unconflicted and friendly is going really, really well. 

He isn’t sure how to physically convey an absence of inner turmoil—where does one’s arm go?—but it seems like he should figure it out quickly. He queues up the movie and then positions and repositions the computer every which way—on the arm of the sofa, on the table, on a pillow in the middle of each cushion—finally determining with abject horror that his own raised knees are probably the most optimal viewing location.

The lights dim and David startles as Patrick announces, “If I leave them on, there’s too much glare,” approaching with his left hand braced in a navy blue splint that comes over his thumb and halfway up his wrist. “I let the cat out of the bag, so I might as well follow doctor’s orders, right?” 

David nods in agreement but doesn’t know if he should ask more questions about that—his arms are still at his sides in his newly adopted _I am in no way conflicted about my feelings for you but please don’t ask me to prove this_ position—but once again, he quells the urge. 

He waits as Patrick settles next to him, so they can both see the twelve inch screen that David has propped on his knees. “Here,” Patrick says, scooting half of the laptop onto his own leg, hip and thigh bumping against David’s. “Is that better?”

David doesn't know if he’d use the word _better._ Closer and more intimate, definitely. Causing heart palpitations, indeed. “Mmm,” he says through closed lips, his head bobbing at a rhythm that could probably be deemed excessive. “I mean, would I prefer an iMax experience? Maybe.”

“Well, the vow of poverty I had to take with the monks precluded any large audio visual purchases, so we’ll have to put a pin in that. Maybe our next movie night,” Patrick says, angling his torso to grab a pen and stack of index cards off the side table. “Flashcards,” he mouths.

David has never known himself to be aroused by the mention of a study aid, but as he’s learned Patrick has a knack for making things more exciting than they would be otherwise. He finds himself repositioning his legs and dragging a throw pillow over the exposed portion of his lap just in case other parts of his body take up a sudden interest in flashcards, too. “Great idea,” David says, barely recognizing the register of his own voice.

They settle in after Patrick reaches over to hit _Play_ and the title cards come up on the screen. David finally allows himself room to exhale, even though Patrick is still only inches away, diligently scribbling new details into his notes.

As Michael J. Fox and the scientist prattle on about plutonium and gigawatts onscreen, David watches Patrick watch the movie, which is a totally natural thing to do, watching a friend—yes, that is what he is, David decides— while the lights of the screen perform symphonies across the planes of Patrick’s cheekbones. Yes, they are definitely friends.

They’re halfway into the movie before David realizes that Patrick has stopped note taking, and instead has his right, unbraced arm stretched across the back of the sofa, lingering perilously and tantalizingly close to David’s neck. Patrick’s arm radiates a sweet tentative warmth and since David is already getting a chill from the still-open window, he doesn’t technically object to its presence. 

It’s been years since David's really watched this movie; he prefers a rom-com, so he’s forgotten the ins and outs of the plot. He remembered the vaguely incestuous undertones, because, well, that stays with you, but he’d forgotten the music-related storyline. David’s entire body tenses involuntarily when he hears Michael J. Fox talking about playing music to get his parents to dance and therefore, fall in love. It seems extremely ill-timed, considering what Patrick has just disclosed. 

“Are you cold?” Patrick asks then, with David rigid beside him as he waits for Patrick to realize the parallel to himself. “I can go close the window.” 

“No,” David answers before he knows what he’s saying. “I’m good.”

Patrick gets up anyway, closing the window and stopping by his bed to pick up the crocheted afghan that had been folded at the bottom of it. He drapes the blanket over the back of the sofa and sits back down, pulling the fabric around so that it covers both of their chests. It’s a lot, maybe too much, feeling the warm line of Patrick’s body omnipresent in their now shared cocoon, thighs and shoulders and knees bumping.

 _Friendly, friendly, friendly_ , David has to remind himself, a little breathily, even in his own head.

They make it the rest of the way through the movie without incident. Patrick doesn’t break down in sobs when Marty plays _Johnny B. Goode_ on guitar at the school dance, but maybe his leg isn’t as still as it had been. It’s only ten o’clock by the time the first movie winds down, so Patrick insists that it isn’t too late for them to get started on the second.

Which is clearly untrue, because Patrick starts trying to disguise his yawns about twenty minutes in.

“This isn’t a forced march, you know.” David hits _pause_ as Patrick pretends to...he’s not even sure Patrick pretended not to yawn that time, actually. “We can come back to it.”

“I could go longer, David,” Patrick says in his _write it down I’m six points sure_ voice, and there is definitely a part of David that would be willing to live in that tone of voice, take out a timeshare, vacation there. Something, anything that involves more time and wrapping himself up in it, the same way they’re wrapped together in this blanket. “I’d like to finish the movie.”

“Okay then.” David waits as Patrick readjusts, burrowing into the sofa so that his shoulder is perpendicular to the back cushion, and his warm breath hits the side of David’s neck. “Are we ready to go?” David asks, remaining conspicuously still. This is a delicate balance, clearly.

He hits play before Patrick even responds, maybe just to be difficult, and it isn’t ten minutes before Patrick’s heavy, sleep-warm head is drooping onto David’s shoulder and upper arm.

It takes David a full minute to adjust to the idea that Patrick has just drifted off to sleep in his presence and is now using him as a pillow because he absolutely, positively does not feel capable of maintaining any kind of business-casual-trivia-haha-we’re-just-friends type of relationship at this moment.

How could he, really? David looks down at the crown of Patrick’s head, hair ruffled and askew, and listens to the snuffly-cute deep breaths he takes as he sleeps. 

Pulling the blanket more firmly across Patrick’s broad shoulders, David knows he shouldn’t leave Patrick to sleep all night on the sofa. It can’t be good for his arm or his back or any other part of him, but he dreads the moment that Patrick’s eyes open and the spell lifts. Because then he’ll lose this quiet, simple time alone with someone that he’s beginning to care about. 

Then again, David could coax Patrick awake and he could tell him what he’s been thinking (and trying not to think) and see if Patrick might be thinking the same thing.

David could ruin all of this, with just one kiss. Patrick is his teammate, and maybe now his friend, who believes David is a safe space to hold things that he has never told anyone else. David doesn’t know if he can risk that for something, in his experience, that tends not to last past a few months and a little bit of fun.

Patrick moves on his shoulder then, raising his head as he blinks awake. David waits as he orients himself to space and time, bleary-eyed and foggy. “Oh. Shit. Sorry about that,” he says, scooting back and taking his sleep-warmth with him. “I haven’t been sleeping very well lately. Up a lot, thinking about...stuff.”

“Hm, yes, well, stuff is—important.” It’s clear Patrick doesn’t care to expound on that, so David changes the subject. “But I do see why the second movie didn’t do quite as well at the box office.”

“Actually, this one was pretty commensurate with—” Patrick sits up straighter, rubbing at his eyes and yawning until he catches David’s bemusement. “—the box office take of the first movie.”

“Oh, good to know.” It’s hard to decide what to do with his hands or his face next. David feels frozen instead. 

Patrick yawns again. “Sorry, I guess we aren’t going to get to Michael J. Fox in the Wild West after all.”

David tries not to hear the disappointment in Patrick’s voice and then maybe a little in his own, too. “Not unless you’re hiding a DeLorean in here, no.”

“Hmm. It’s in the shop, sorry.” Patrick hesitates slightly and in the low light of the apartment, Patrick’s cheeks are still flushed from his impromptu nap and the wine they drank earlier. His lips are pink and full and round. David is close enough now that he can spot tiny imperfections along the bridge of his nose, scars maybe, from having chicken pox. David has never noticed them before but they’re strangely endearing, these spots that make Patrick seem even more accessible. It might be nice if sometime he could run his fingertips over them, just lightly. Just enough to see how Patrick’s skin might feel under his fingers. Because as drawn as he is to Patrick physically, he's beginning to realize that he's inexorably drawn to the brain and the heart and the passion beneath.

“We’ll watch it next time, then,” David offers.

Patrick gives him a soft smile. “Yes, definitely next time.”

They say good night at the door and David walks home in the cold fall night, pinpricks of stars brilliant in the sapphire sky above him. 

He tosses and turns for too long in bed, unable to slow his thoughts long enough to grab for sleep. Instead, he pulls out his own laptop with the intention of turning on _Center Stage_ or some other mindless movie he can play for background noise. As he scrolls through options, he finds himself selecting _Back to the Future Part III_ instead and pulling out his trivia notebook to take his own notes.

At 5:00 a.m. David wakes up to Ted Danson’s wife and Doc Brown wearing vintage clothing and Doc shouting over a train engine, “Your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it,” and David has to take a moment to realize he’s not in the scene with them. But as he slowly comes back into himself, he wonders if now isn’t the time to start writing his own.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

“ _Requiem for a Dream?”_

“No, Jared Leto. Yes, Jennifer Connelly,” David tells Stevie. He will fully admit to having an attraction to dark-haired, dark-eyed women. He will not admit, however, to the pizza delivery incident at Leto’s house.

“ _The Sisters Brothers.”_

“Double yes to Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal. I would fall down a Jake Gyllen-hole every night if he’d let me. But an emphatic Casey Affleck-sized no to Joaquin Phoenix.”

“You’re not even going to consider John C. Reilly?”

David raises an eyebrow. “Are you?”

Going through possible movies to show at the Art House and deciding which cast members they’d sleep with is a typical Monday shift, but David is still preoccupied with what happened with Patrick over the weekend. It’s just that every time he goes to articulate it, he finds himself stumbling over what he believes the problem to be.

At ten o’clock in the morning after their...thing, he’d woken to a series of apologetic memes from Patrick and a text message that read **Accidentally sleeping with someone is usually more of a third date move for me. Sorry I jumped ahead.**

So it was a date. Where no one kissed anyone because David somehow became paralyzed with uncertainty and Patrick was...Patrick. Why didn’t Patrick kiss him?

A balled up napkin whizzes by David’s head, bouncing off the wall behind him and landing on the ground, Stevie’s exceedingly mature way of garnering his attention. “Hey. Robin from Trivia Newton John just called to ask if we’d do another _Grease_ sing-a-long. The Jazzagals are putting together a new medley and they’d like to use it as rehearsal.”

“Ew. No. I’m still brain bleaching the _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ choreography from my head. It was nauseatingly suggestive. _"_ Suggestive is putting it mildly. Even months later, images of their collective hip thrusts still invade his sleep like slow, sad, militant crusaders. “And let us not speak of the Nine Inch Nails incident.”

“We shan’t,” Stevie says mock-seriously as their manager Vic emerges from his office, two different pairs of readers perched atop his head. There’s been a lot of shouting coming from the back today, which is why David and Stevie have been sticking close to the lobby. Usually David would be hiding in the storeroom with his book by now and Stevie would be in the box office playing Solitaire on her phone but neither of them wanted to get caught up in or between whatever was going on behind closed doors.

Vic looks down at his phone and then up at David. “Where’s Butani?”

“I haven't seen him. He’s not going to try to organize our store room again, is he?” David is suspicious because he is still recovering from all the bending he’s had to do searching out the supplies Ray insisted would be better on lower shelves. No one should have to touch their toes to find the receipt tape. If Ray has a license in closet reorganization, it should be revoked. “I cannot be Ray-Kondoed again.”

“He’s not touching your closets, don’t worry.” Vic says, distracted by what he’s reading with both pairs of glasses until he bends to pick up the napkin ball that Stevie chucked at David. “Just send him back when he gets here and could you two please stop wasting the paper products? We can’t afford the mark-up on this stuff as it is.”

“So, Vic’s definitely up to something, right?” Stevie says as the office door slams behind their boss. “And it’s not at all scary?”

But they aren't left time to analyze it because Ray enters the lobby in a whirlwind of file folders and photography equipment. Which adds up to only a few of Ray’s businesses as potential options for his presence, none of them boding well for David’s place of employment. Even if Ray is just here to take promotional pictures, which seems unlikely given Vic’s general views on advertising, David doesn’t see how green-screened shots of the theater in front of an erupting volcano will bring in customers. 

“David and Stevie! How wonderful to see you during my plentiful business hours instead of, what did the LARPers call it? My side hustle, or in my case, my side side side side side hustle.”

David makes what he hopes looks like a mostly non-judgmental face since Ray has the last word in deciding if their trivia answers are correct every week. 

“And I certainly hope it is not unethical of the trivia host to congratulate you on the fairytale season that Shut the Front Dior has been having. What a comeback, and what a delightful addition to your team that Patrick has turned out to be.”

“Yes, well, David certainly seems to like him,” Stevie says and David has to clasp his hands together so as not to start waving exasperated fingers in her general direction.

“Oh good for you, David. Is he also helping you to update your trivia website?”

“If you want to call it that, sure.” Stevie starts to grin like she’s just realized a new manner in which to torture David, starting with the weaponization of Ray’s garrulousness. 

“No, he’s not updating my website, but okay, thank you, Ray. So good to see you.” David is using his most patient tone: _please leave so I can bludgeon Stevie with a napkin holder. “_ I think Vic is back there in his office. Just down the hall.” He flaps a hand in the general direction Ray should be walking so as to finally end the conversation and limit any potential embarrassment.

Then David whirls back to start in on the person he used to call his friend whose face is already scrunched in hysterical laughter. 

“What are you doing? Why are you telling Ray about Patrick when _I_ don’t even know about Patrick?”

“So what I’m hearing you say is that Patrick is smart and funny and kind and he trusts you and the Magic Eight Ball of your brain still points to ‘Answer Hazy, Ask Again Later’?”

Aside from the attempts at humiliation, if David gave her a pair of glasses and put her hair in a bun, she could be every therapist he has ever been to in his life. 

He hates it when Stevie is right. He’s been oscillating for the last two days about what to do, even though he thought he’d already made a decision. It doesn’t help that he generally believes that his love life was predetermined by the universe and now he’s destined for a lifetime of not-quite and almost-had-it and what-the-fuck-was-that. And David isn’t sure what he did in a past life to deserve it.

“But what if he’s the one who is hazy?” It’s Patrick who isn’t planning on staying in town. And he knows what fictional Doc Brown told him about writing his own future, but Doc Brown doesn’t have a brain riddled with anxiety and just a touch of self-loathing.

“Okay. Do I get a vote or has women’s suffrage not yet happened in your world?” Stevie extracts a cup from the stack on the counter and starts filling it from the soda machine. “You have to know that he likes you. I mean, I know he likes you. It seems like even Ray knows he likes you. Why don’t you know he likes you?”

Yes. There are signs. David hasn’t always been great at reading signs, but yes, they do appear to be getting clearer and clearer. 

Which is why he attempts not to read too much into the fact when, for the first time in six weeks, Patrick doesn’t show up at his usual time for trivia. 

Stevie and David both glance apprehensively down at his phone where it lays face down on the table. “Just text him, David.”

He can’t. David doesn’t tell Stevie how he actually started a frantic WebMD spiral about repetitive stress injuries in musicians or how he’d woken up in a cold sweat last night, remembering that his mother used to say he should tell his secrets to someone he disliked, because it didn’t matter what they thought of him. Which David’s brain translates to Patrick telling him about his injury because he didn’t matter, because he’s no one, in the scheme of things. 

Or how he’d almost shaved off his own eyebrow this morning in a nearly calamitous distracted grooming accident because he was thinking about Patrick’s near-empty apartment and his big sad loud eyes and the weight of Patrick’s head against his shoulder as he slept.

David sighs. “Let’s wait one more minute.”

“Okay, because he’ll be here.” 

She’s right. Of course she’s right. Patrick does show up just as Ray is doing the opening announcements and Stevie kicks David in the shin to celebrate her own intellectual victory.

“Why are you late?” David has to yell his question down the table at Patrick, who is sitting on the opposite side of George instead of his usual seat, where he belongs. There. David can admit it. Patrick should be directly across from him, smiling drolly and taking notes in his neat penmanship and telling David he’s wrong about what a write-off is when Ray inevitably asks a Business question about income tax. Patrick is so far away that he may as well be sitting in Tasmania (the vulva, if Patrick was the one drawing it as a geographical landmark) and David is deeply unthrilled.

Patrick contritely points to his left arm, as if that explains everything, and shouts, “Sorry, my phone was dead and I couldn’t text!”

David is about to tell George to trade seats with Patrick when Ray starts the opening music and Twyla interrupts to deliver drinks and mozzarella sticks and by then it’s too late to do anything about it. It’s not as if they’ll never see each other again. 

But there is something about having Patrick two seats further away and out of both eyeline and earshot during the game that seems to cause David’s brain to separate and reassemble. Poorly. He can’t remember simple things— _The Handmaid’s Tale_ suddenly becomes the “one with the nuns, of-somebody,” which Ted cannot seem to put together and has Stevie suggesting _Sister Act._ It takes Tennessee, in a last minute revelation, to remember the correct title, but by then, they’ve already changed the bet to a one point answer. 

David is almost panting with mental overexertion by the time the Halftime question arrives, but naming the Greek Muses is right in Patrick’s wheelhouse and David has to pass the answer pad down the table so Patrick can scribble down four of the nine for extra points. It isn’t the same when Ted’s knuckles brush over David’s as he accepts the pad for passing; it just feels like skin and an accidental touch. When it’s Patrick, it feels deliberate and incendiary.

After the game (a loss, their first game since Patrick joined that they haven’t placed in the top 3 finishers), Patrick approaches with a thick stack of index cards and a sheepish smile and David immediately wants to hug him, to kiss him hello the way he should have kissed him goodbye after their movie. 

“Hi.” Patrick leans slightly in and David moves to the left instead of center and somehow ends up kissing him just under the eye, which should be awkward but instead feels natural somehow. He allows his hands to slide across Patrick’s shoulders in a facsimile of a hug.

“Hi.” Pulling away, David accepts the proffered index cards from Patrick as if they’re a bouquet of flowers. “Are we doing some kind of public speaking engagement?”

Patrick gives him a shy, hopeful smile. “I was thinking maybe we could stick around here, have a drink, and uh, practice?”

“Practice our...oratory skills?” David doesn’t know how it happens, but it always seems to happen—his turning into a gelatinous moron whenever Patrick is within seven feet and smiling at him. 

It could be a trick of the light, but Patrick appears to flush from the tips of his ears down to the whisper of a clavicle that peeks out of his sweater. “Um, no. Well, maybe—we can practice whatever subject you’d like.” And then, in that low, sort of rough, six-points sure voice, “Tell Stevie I’ll take you home.”

Seeing Patrick, being back in his presence, is taking all of the possibilities David had laid out and redistributing them into the ether via rocket launcher.

Patrick is still standing there, expectant and earnest and perfectly unaware of any dithering, waiting for an answer to a simple question. Or maybe he already knows the answer. Or knows that it isn’t really a question at all.

“Yes.” David says. If he’s the tiniest bit breathless, it’s from the still too-sticky air in the Wobbly Elm. “We should definitely stay and...practice.”

So they end up in a two person booth in the back by the pool table and it’s cozy. It’s cozy and Patrick’s ankles knock into David’s whenever he crosses them; Patrick gets blustery about ordering drinks for both of them and insists on paying and David is utterly, overwhelmingly charmed.

Patrick isn’t kidding about practicing, though; he’s actually reviewing notes he’s written in tight script in the margins of a notebook and telling David about this concept of a memory palace from a book he’s reading expressly so he could share it with David. He’s talking about encoding and decoding and visualization and it could be nonsense or it could be brilliant. Imagining Patrick doing research with David in mind, reading a book, taking notes, spending his free time doing something for David...well, David doesn’t even know how to parse that, other than knowing that it makes him valued in a way that he doesn’t always feel valued. 

Patrick says he’s going to use the memory palace to better acquaint himself with the periodic table, and then he makes a terrible Ted-level joke about only needing to use it periodically. David retaliates by making a show of leaving the table, despite the fact that he has no intention of going anywhere.

Patrick’s fingers are solid on his wrist when he grabs at David to keep him from getting too far. “Hey, no. I’m sorry. The joke was right there. I had to do it. Please don’t go.” His plea is more of a laugh, but it’s enough to convince David.

“Well. I think you need to stay here and think about what you’ve done,” David says archly, but he knows Patrick can see the smile he’s suppressing. Patrick is suppressing a smile of his own and the air between them is charged, static with...want, maybe. He notices that Patrick still hasn’t let go of his arm, so David slides in the booth next to Patrick when he sits back down.

Feeling daring, David runs his fingers up the length of Patrick’s exposed forearm, still stretched atop the table. His skin is pale and smooth and even in the dim bar lighting, the surgical scar is visible. Patrick notices him noticing and hesitates, just for a moment, like Patrick is deciding something about how far he’s willing to allow David in. Patrick smiles at David, shadowy and vague, but it is only then that he gently turns his arm back over and out of David’s eyeline. 

“I like this song,” Patrick says, changing the subject, voice soft. It’s an old Peter Gabriel song; David doesn’t know it very well but he can hear lyrics about the book of love being full of facts and figures, and that sounds very on brand for Patrick.

“It’s not Aretha, but it’s serviceable.”

Patrick pretends to be wounded, clutching his chest. “Are you damning Peter Gabriel with faint praise? Harsh, David.” 

“Okay, I think he can handle it.” 

“Hmm. I know from experience that musicians can have very fragile egos.”

“You’re a musician and your ego isn’t fragile.” David says. “What’s the opposite of fragile? Bulletproof?”

“I wouldn’t say bulletproof. I’m still a little hurt about you not taking my correct answer about Napoleon earlier.”

“You said it was a guess!”

“C’mon, there are only so many French military leaders they’re going to ask questions about. It was an educated guess!” Patrick’s little face is getting red, even now, a few hours after the fact. It’s so stupidly precious that David wants to push harder, get a larger reaction. This must be how Patrick feels, when he pokes at David. He’s right to do it if it makes him feel as powerful as David does right now.

“But that is still a guess. It’s right there in the name. If it’s an answer, say it’s an answer.” 

“Well, next time, I’ll make it clear that it’s the _correct_ answer.” Patrick says, moving over, making just enough room that they’re still crowded together, but David is fully seated on the bench.

Patrick is smiling, that soft smile that he reserves for...David. He reserves it for David, he realizes, and something squeezes more tightly in his chest. Patrick is watching him with that same sweet curiosity that he always has and it hums warmly under the surface of David’s skin. 

There are a few beats. David leans forward and Patrick bites his lip and time might actually stop.

It stops long enough for David to watch as Patrick’s eyes begin to glow in recognition and his face...his face sings. At trivia, David watches Patrick as he takes notes and doodles song lyrics in margins and even then, sometimes Patrick feels flat. Like he’s a paper doll. But here, in front of David, thinking he’s about to be kissed, he becomes three dimensional. Alive.

David has kissed a thousand people but no one that he liked or respected or thought was nice. Patrick is all of those things, more than all of those things, and so far, liking Patrick has far exceeded David’s expectations. 

He may even like Patrick more because Patrick seems surprised, like he has just been presented with a gift he’d wanted, but hadn’t expected to receive.

The first press of lips is tentative and slow and sends flickers of electricity rippling down David’s spine. Choreography in the booth is a bit more unduly complicated than first kisses deserve, but somehow they move closely enough in tandem that David is no longer cognizant of table ledges or beer bottles or anything, really. Anything that isn’t Patrick. 

Patrick’s mouth is as soft as his smile, his tongue whip-smart. He tastes like beer and salt and his kisses are teasing and bright. David’s skin thrums with the possibilities as he melts under Patrick’s hands, so pliant that he can barely lift his own to pull Patrick closer. He manages, somehow, through sheer force of will, cupping Patrick’s face, thumb arced over his cheekbone.

So Patrick smiles again, this time into David’s mouth, and when David emits a tiny, needy whimper, Patrick’s smile broadens. Their kisses become clumsy then, a crash of too many teeth and not enough tongue and hands greedily searching waistbands and shoulders. 

It’s noisy in the bar and people are still chattering around them, shooting pool and throwing darts and David doesn’t care about any of it, because what he cares about is here, in this booth, with Patrick. Who has regained control as he licks into David’s mouth and is almost climbing into David’s lap. He’s running his hands over the slopes of Patrick’s thick thighs and toward the curve of his ass as Patrick almost grinds against him. The friction is delicious but not enough and they’re in public—god, what if Patrick is into exhibitionism, that would be insanely hot—and David pulls back, for just a millisecond. 

Patrick is panting, his lips pink, pupils blown. His auburn curls are scattered across his forehead since David must have been digging his hands in them—okay, he was definitely digging his hands in them. They were silky to the touch, the thick strands sliding gloriously through his fingers as he tugged Patrick closer to his mouth. “David,” he says, as if that is the only word he can manage. “David.”

“Should we take this elsewhere?”

Patrick nods, dumbly but fervently, his face still wrecked. The jolt of pride David gets for putting that look on calm, collected Patrick’s face can't really be measured. “Yes. Yes. We should take it everywhere.” 

They fumble through collecting their things and settling their tab and Patrick practically pushes David into the parking lot with hands scrabbling around his waist, under the hem of his sweater, frantic. They share heated kisses against the car and when Patrick finally pulls away, his crooked smile is a confession. “I should take you home before…”

“Before what?” David asks innocently. 

“I just really....the things I want to do with you don’t really mix well with gravel, is all.” 

“Oh.” David is stunned, but only momentarily. David likes that picture, would like to be in that picture, but he understands. He’s wearing Dries van Noten, so.

“I really...I want to make you feel good. For you to be comfortable.” Patrick is still a potent mix of bewildered and determined and it’s really fucking hot.

David isn’t sure what Patrick means, if he keeps a blanket in the trunk for parking lot blowjob genuflection and he just needs to get it situated, or if he wants to schedule an appointment for a more....private showing which. That’s on brand. 

“Yes, I want that. I want to do that.” David answers quickly, in case this is one of those offers that self-destructs. 

“Is the car okay? We can go back to my place…”

“No,” David swallows, “No, the car is fine. The car is perfect.”

Which is when David charges at Patrick and kisses him again. They fumble with door locks and practically pitch sideways into Patrick’s backseat. It’s small but there’s enough space that David can sort of hitch his legs up if Patrick kneels on the floorboard. Patrick’s hands are on David’s belt buckle and his zipper is down before the door even closes. 

Patrick moves deftly and with care, setting David’s skin on fire everywhere he manages to touch. David groans when Patrick finally takes him into his mouth, hot and wet and perfect. It goes too fast; it feels too good. It’s loud. Patrick is loud; David is loud. After David comes, Patrick pushes his face in the divot of David’s thigh, sucking and biting and making him writhe, oversensitized and satiated. David whines and Patrick gives him a few final strokes of his tongue, pulling himself up into David’s space to meet his lips. They make out lazily until David can’t not return the favor and Patrick’s hips stutter with his release, car filling with his throaty whine. He pats David's head and shoulders so loosely, so sweetly, saying, “you’re so good, you’re so good,” over and over until David kisses him quiet.

They get cleaned up with napkins that Patrick crawls over the front seat to retrieve and David laughs at how sweaty and disheveled and absolutely destroyed Patrick is, until he realizes that he’s also slick with sweat and the windows have been fogged as if Patrick just painted him like he was a French girl. 

Afterward, they clamber into the front seat on shaky legs; well, David can only speak for himself, but fuck. He is not steady. When Patrick kisses him again, one hand on the steering wheel, one hand on David’s neck, David feels strung out, like he can’t possibly get enough of this.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” David hears himself blurt. Playing it cool seems unimportant now, if he’d ever planned on it. Coming down someone’s throat precludes you from having chill, David decides, and he’s going to lean in. “I work but. Could I see you anyway?”

Tomorrow isn’t a trivia day. It’s a Wednesday and David works until close but he wants Patrick to say _yes_ and he wants to spend as much time with Patrick as possible, even if it’s at eleven p.m. and all they do is make out and pretend to watch _Save the Last Dance_ on Patrick’s tiny laptop in Patrick’s tiny apartment _._ He hopes Patrick feels the same. 

“I’m at the senior center until five. Text me when you’re off and we could get a pizza and go back to my place?” 

“Mmm. Good. It’s a date then.” The corner of Patrick’s mouth curls and David immediately wants to meet that curl with his own mouth and tongue. He wants to taste Patrick again. He does, briefly, because he is suddenly brave and he wants him and thinks that now, maybe he’s actually able to _have_ him.

They drive home with Patrick’s radio station supplying a quiet soundtrack of eighties pop love songs. David can’t stop glancing over at Patrick as he drives—at his little pink ear, at his stubble, at the red markings that David left in the wake of hot, needy, exploratory kisses. Patrick’s hairline is beaded with sweat and the collar on his shirt is bent and jutting upward; he’s a mess. David reaches over to gently lay the collar flat, stroking a little at Patrick’s exposed neck as he does so.

“Thanks. I should have worn a button-down.” Patrick’s eye darts to the side momentarily, to catch David’s reaction that he’s learned the difference. There’s another smile threatening to erupt on Patrick’s face because his chin sort of quivers with it. “Could have avoided that embarrassing wardrobe malfunction.”

“Indeed, a lesson was learned,” David says, warmth and possibility building at what else Patrick might be learning from him as he leans forward to turn up George Michael’s _Faith._ “I fucking love this song.”

They pull up in front of David’s building and Patrick puts the car into park, turning to David before David can even release his seatbelt. He’s backlit by the streetlamp and it's causing him to glow. Or maybe he’s just as happy as David is right now.

“Hey,” Patrick reaches out to put his hand on David’s. It’s so fucking sincere, David doesn’t know what to do, where to put his eyes. Patrick is developing a pattern of this. Making David believe that he’s worth reaching for. “I’m really sorry about falling asleep on you the other night. Especially, you know, now that I know what would have happened if I had kissed you like I wanted to.”

David makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat that might be a swoon but he also knows he can’t just volley back equal sincerity without consequences. Right? He has to take a breath. “Oh you wanted to kiss me? And here I thought you wanted to sleep with me.”

“I mean, I could definitely be persuaded to give it another go. Maybe I’ll even stay awake this time,” David thinks about saying _it wouldn’t be anything you could sleep through,_ but then Patrick’s lips are on his and he decides to let Patrick keep kissing him instead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always to Distractive for the beta (and then last minute live blog beta) and to vivianblakesunrisebay for workshopping the ending as an avoidance tactic. Also, big ups to Delilah McMuffin for reminding me that Faith is my jam.


	5. Chapter 5

Playing trivia has a lot more kissing than it did when Gwen was still on the team.

David is at work but sweeping the theaters of post-show detritus isn’t exactly mentally taxing, so he has plenty of opportunity to allow his mind to wander. 

It’s been five days since David kissed Patrick at the Wobbly Elm, and in the parking lot, and again in his car, and the frequency of the kissing really hasn’t slowed down at all. He can’t get enough of Patrick’s hands and lips and tongue, and it seems like Patrick is equally as curious as David about how many ways they can fit themselves together. 

Between his volunteer shifts at the Senior Center, Patrick stops by the Art House to bring David lunches when he knows he has to work until close. He leans over the counter like he belongs there, his sleeves rolled up and his elbows firmly planted in David’s space. He helps restock the straws and napkins when they have increased foot traffic for the Julia Stiles-A-Thon and when he and David have a more...private viewing, Patrick makes David come so hard that his eyes roll back in his head right there, in the last row of the theater. David is going to hang a commemorative name plate. _Patrick Brewer’s Magical Right Hand and Brilliant Tongue Curl Blew David Rose In Both Mind and Body; Row P, Seats 1 and 2 (and a little bit of 3, sorry)._

Picking up the last abandoned popcorn carton and depositing in the waste bin, David represses a satisfied sigh.

It isn’t all sex. Patrick makes suggestions on ways that David can start up-selling concessions to make more money for the artist showcase he wants to someday arrange for the lobby. He drives out to Elm Valley to pick up new artwork David thinks may “brighten the space” that he then spends hours hanging on the walls to David’s exacting specifications. ( _He can hammer with the best of them_ , David thinks dreamily one Tuesday afternoon, watching a bead of sweat travel glacially down the back of Patrick’s neck, the vein in his right forearm bulging.) If David then follows Patrick into the stockroom when things are slow to fully appreciate him against the shelving unit where they store extra paper towels, it’s about being grateful for a job well done. And if they repeatedly return to that spot during business hours, well, that only happens a few times before Stevie catches David sucking hungrily on Patrick’s neck like the world’s most friendly vampire and they’re forced to dial back their less-professional trips.

Okay, so it’s a lot of sex and sex-adjacent activities. Patrick is into it. David is into it. It works.

On game nights, Patrick is the same attentive teammate he’s always been, quick to brainstorm and supply answers and tease, except now, his ankles are tangled around David’s and his hands linger purposefully when he passes napkins and answer sheets and drinks. Patrick has a way of combining all of David’s favorite things, it turns out: attention, competition, care.

Like the night Patrick stood up to deliver an answer, but bent back down, smoothing one of David’s eyebrows before he leaned back down to kiss it with an unrepentant casualness. David, understandably, was initially aghast. 

“No one has ever done that before,” David said into the Cosmopolitan Patrick had set down in front him earlier in the evening. He could feel all kinds of different emotions clawing at his chest but chief amongst them was that Patrick had just done that like it was natural. Like he did it every day and would do it again and again. 

Patrick’s forehead wrinkled, his face perplexed. David braced himself for a reaction that entailed having his own faults pointed out, because that was usually how this worked, with other people. But Patrick just let his hand hover on the side of David’s face where it affectionately threatened to touch him again, his mouth very serious until it wasn’t. “Who were those weirdos? You have great eyebrows. Very kissable. They missed out.” 

David then spent the rest of that game thinking of ways that he could recreate that moment, the one where he realized for the first time that Patrick wasn’t anything like Other People. 

For their date—which will be the first that they are explicitly planning as a Date and not just a period of time where they are semi-alone and very-much-touching—Patrick is going to take David to a taco truck located somewhere along the highway, which, truthfully, sounds dubious at best. First, there are the more murdery implications, being lured out to the middle of nowhere where no one can hear you scream and then, not to be overshadowed, the very real possibility of food-borne illness. 

Frankly, David doesn’t really believe in eating food from a kitchen that isn’t stationary. (“Kitchens shouldn’t move, Patrick,” he said, and Patrick just laughed and kissed him again. “I mean, I still want to go, and I want both the burrito and the taco, but understand that I am registering my skepticism,” David told Patrick, who was nodding very seriously, but clearly not viewing David’s objections as valid. “Noted.”) But Patrick had been so excited about a road trip and Mexican soda and the tacos al pastor that David couldn’t have said no if he wanted to. (Spoiler alert: He didn’t want to say no.)

By the time Patrick picks him up, the sun has already set and the temperature has dipped past comfortable and into downright cold. The multi-colored quilt from their movie non-date is folded in the passenger seat. “Hi,” Patrick says, leaning over the console to kiss David hello. 

Patrick’s kisses are just like Patrick: self-assured, meticulous, charismatic, and charming. And a lot hot. And while David’s hands have quickly grown accustomed to the feel of Patrick’s skin beneath them, he’s also realizing how much he just likes having Patrick, all of him—his brain, his mouth, his body—open to him. In response, David finds himself opening in ways that he never has before.

David lifts the blanket onto his lap as he buckles his seatbelt, ever suspicious. “You’re not planning on making me sit on the ground, are you?” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Patrick laughs. “No, it’s really more of a preventative complaining measure.”

“And what, pray tell, would I be complaining about?” 

“Well, so far we have,” Patrick counts against the steering wheel, tapping his finger with each item as if David had nailed a new set of Ninety-Five Theses to his door. “Kitchens that move, winged creatures, picnic tables, the lack of a maître d’, the length of the drive—”

“Okay, okay.” He doesn’t remember saying _all_ of those things. Others he may have alluded to. Subtly. “So you’re going to throw the blanket over my head and lock me in the trunk if I complain more?”

“Yes.” Patrick flicks the radio on like he didn’t just jovially agree that he would Out of Sight David if worse came to worse. “Of course not, David. It’s for when you inevitably say you’re freezing but we haven’t had dessert yet—”

“So there’s dessert,” David interrupts.

“Of course there’s dessert.” Patrick states this the same way he states the names of baseball players and mountain ranges and his favorite songs during trivia; he says it with conviction and the confidence that he knows David needs to hear. He knows because David can’t be expected to have to school his face into playing coy about how that tone and rhythm of voice makes him feel. 

“Okay. I trust you.”

“Good. Because I wouldn't have made you drive all this way for tacos if I didn't think it was gonna be worth it.” 

David reaches over and rubs the top of Patrick’s thigh encouragingly. There isn’t much in the way of roadside attractions so watching the highway pass underneath their tires is David’s main entertainment along with Patrick’s car stereo, which is still tuned to Patrick’s favorite eighties and nineties radio station. 

Patrick sings along to Celine Dion, which is slightly unexpected, and practically belts out Huey Lewis, which is upsetting, but his Stevie Nicks is very good and his Christina Aguilera is a revelation.

“So we’re sure everything checks out with the taco stand?” David asks again a few minutes into Patrick’s very enthusiastic Backstreet Boys sing-along, which is almost too adorable to interrupt. “Everything is up to snuff with inspections? No issues with refrigeration?”

“David, it’s 7 degrees today. Even if their freezer fails, I think we’ll be okay.”

“I’d like to leave more than _okay_. With that kind of low bar for yourself, it’s a wonder you haven’t been struck dead by E. coli.”

“Okay, if you’re that afraid of eating at the highly rated, well-reviewed taco stand, we can reroute and I’ll take you to IKEA for a meatball.” 

Those meatballs are the only good thing about IKEA. Well, one of the only good things. “And that dala horse candy?” 

Patrick glances into his side mirror so he can overtake the van driving in front of them. “So do you want me to turn around?” He questions as he maneuvers the car back into its lane. He doesn’t sound annoyed but he doesn’t not sound annoyed. David doesn’t want to annoy him, so he bites his bottom lip.

“No, just...next time.” 

“Okay, next time,” Patrick repeats, but more warmly now, and takes his eyes off the road long enough to toss David a hopeful smile. 

It’s been a long time since _next time_ sounded more like a promise than a warning, and David can feel himself slowly wanting more and more _next time_ s. Like there might not ever be enough.

* * *

The only real problem with the taco stand is that they can’t hitch it to the back of Patrick’s tiny rustbucket of a car and bring it home to Schitt’s Creek with them.

They have arrived at their destination just after sunset and the taco stand, for all the horror that David was envisioning, is downright picturesque. 

It sits back from the road on a stone patio, with a grid of colorful lights strung from tall wooden poles. Picnic tables line the perimeter and upbeat Latin music pours out of the speakers. It’s like nowhere else David has been since he lost his old life and it looks like...possibility, something constant and pulsing and present. When David looks over at Patrick, he realizes he might think the same thing of him.

Out of the car, Patrick pulls David aside as he gapes at the menu and inhales the mouth-watering smells of garlic and meat and all things fried. The air is definitely thick with the sweet aroma of cinnamon and dough and it’s hard not to just start chewing it, right where he stands.

Attempting to convince David that he is as much of a roadside attraction as the smattering of Mexican cuisine, Patrick noses at David’s neck, at the spot that he gradually seems to be claiming as his. It’s new, this feeling of being claimed. David likes it and wonders what else Patrick might want to claim as his. 

He finds out as Patrick’s hands gradually wander down toward his ass. 

David stops him by reaching back to catch his wrist. “Hi. I like this a lot. Like a lot a lot. But I don’t think these people came to see the seven o’clock show of Make Out Masterpiece Theater.”

Patrick pouts initially, cutely. But he inhales and straightens back up, once he’s given David a firm bite right at the collarbone and his hair has brushed tantalizingly at David’s chin. “At least I’m learning my place with you.” He laughs, a warm breath huffed against David’s prickling skin. “Somewhere after corn tortillas and cotija cheese.”

“Please.” David scoffs. “Flour tortillas. And there are margaritas here.”

“I’ll update my list.” Patrick propels David forward with a hand between his shoulder blades, his forearm firm at David’s back. He’s been doing that even more often, at trivia and at the Art House and just as they walk down the street. It’s gentle but asserts just enough pressure and David finds himself leaning back into the touch more and more. It’s not often that David has been someone’s trophy in a positive, self-affirming manner, but that is what this seems like, that David is prized.

They order and settle in at a picnic table and true to his word, Patrick jogs back to the car to retrieve the blanket he’d packed, since David is blatantly shivering despite the heat lamps interspersed generously amongst the tables. 

“This place is like an oasis.” David takes in the rest of the desolate landscape and the beauty of the rainbow-hued lights and the way the moon plays shadows on Patrick’s face. It’s the stuff of fairytales, really, and something David thought he’d stopped believing in long ago.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” In all of Elm County, David is the one at the advantage, being more settled there and knowing more about where to find the best wine (strangely, Wendy at the Blouse Barn stocks a delicious Riesling) and how many times you can encounter Roland before he makes you want to throw up in your own mouth (exactly zero) and why you can’t allow Twyla near a deck of tarot cards (self-explanatory). 

But here, Patrick is the one with the knowledge and the experience, and after deep negotiations on David’s side, Patrick goes to order. He returns with a tray that is heaping with tacos, tostados, and a burrito that may be larger than David’s head. There’s also fried plantain and tamales and a bowl of perfectly green, entirely fresh, made by people who understand the value and flavor profile of an avocado, guacamole.

“I thought you and guacamole might finally start on the long road to reconciliation with this meal.” Patrick says with a straight-face, until a gleeful twitch of his eyebrow undercuts his tone. He sits down next to David, pushing the tray into David’s space.

“It doesn’t seem possible but I will put forth the effort required, if it means brokering this much needed peace.” David watches as Patrick selects a thick-cut, freshly-made tortilla chip from the paper boat and scoops up a dollop of the dip. 

Patrick holds the chip aloft, his shoulder pressing firmly against David’s as he brings it up to David’s lips and David accepts it on his tongue. Patrick was right; with the first hint of lime and tang of salt and garlic, David is more than willing to forgive the avocado for sliding into his subconscious and almost causing their loss at finals. That being said, David is also willing to forgive Patrick for all the guacamole-related trolling, and that may count for more. 

Patrick follows the food with his own lips, holding David’s jaw as he kisses him soundly, resolutely, fiercely. The kiss is as bright as the taste of the food had been, with the same bite and gusto. And while the flavors are intoxicating, it’s the flicker of Patrick’s tongue against David’s and the confident way he holds David’s head still with a well-placed hand that makes the kiss so all-consuming.

David makes a satisfied noise and Patrick leans his forehead briefly against the ridge of David’s brow, breathing a little more heavily than the moment may warrant. “I want you, David,” he says, low under his breath, and it gives David an exhilarated shiver as he goes back in to chase Patrick’s lips. “So much.”

David nods, serious. His breath hitches. With the heat emanating from Patrick, it’s easy to imagine dramatically sweeping the trays off the table before David crawls into his lap. It’s just a fantasy, but that’s how this whole night feels. Like a fantasy. 

“But I also think we should eat these tacos, because I think that between you and the taco al pastor, you’re the one I would rather reheat,” Patrick smirks and David playfully though frustratedly groans.

Giving David’s shoulder a small squeeze as he pulls his leg back over the bench, Patrick vacates the space and moves back to his own seat.

From David’s limited experience, Patrick doesn’t seem to have the same relationship with food that he does but Patrick digs into his order of tacos like a man starved, his cheeks full as he chews. 

“Hmhph, this is so good. It’s even better than I remember,” he says through an almost full mouth. It should be disgusting but it’s actually just disgustingly charming. A finely diced piece of pineapple tumbles out of the wax paper and lands on the table in front of him. 

“My god,” David says, handing him a napkin. He’s never seen Patrick this enthusiastic about anything he’s put in his mouth, barring what David likes to think of as the recent torrent of very excellent blowjobs. “You’re like the Cookie Monster of the taqueria right now.”

“Sorry,” Patrick apologizes. Well, his mouth apologizes. His eyes say otherwise. “It’s just so fucking delicious.”

“How did you find this place anyway?” David asks as he takes his own generous bites. There is a definite explosion of garlicky, savory goodness on his tongue. He hums a little in response.

Patrick washes down his most recent bite with a huge swig of his soda. There’s a fine sheen of grease on his lips and on his fingers and he’s absolutely gorgeous. “I think Rachel found it when we were on tour near here a couple years ago. She’s kind of a die hard Yelper.” 

Die hard yelping sounds like its own brand of extreme adventure sport and one David would avoid with utmost consistency. “So you guys did a lot of touring and taco eating together?” David knows that Rachel used to be Patrick’s girlfriend, thanks to the internet. He only occasionally returns to Google for Patrick-related information now. Most of it he can get from Patrick directly. If he asks the right questions. Which he has found, through trial and error, means that Patrick can turn it around and ask him questions, too. He’s discovered recently though, that knowing is almost always better than not knowing.

“Well, Rachel had to spend her life stuffed in a van with three smelly guys, so she had to find some way to cope.” David finds himself walking a fine line between jealous and reassured when he hears the warmth in Patrick’s voice as he talks about his ex, who David also knows is Patrick’s best friend. “Hence the taco eating.” Patrick looks down at the cardboard boat that used to contain his dinner for a moment and then takes a healthy swig of his cola. “That was always fun, though. Exploring new places and finding little hideaways and holes-in-the-wall that people who actually lived in the towns didn’t even know about.”

“Mmm. I can see you swaggering into every gin joint and speakeasy and saloon in North America.” 

“A surprising lack of saloons, which was unfortunate for my fringed vest.” David makes a face of abject horror at that and of course, Patrick is wildly delighted. “Had there been any, I definitely would have demanded we pull over. But mostly it was tacos and barbecue places. And ice cream. We would drive fifty miles out of the way if someone posted an Instagram picture of an ice cream cone that also looked like a unicorn.”

Patrick sounds wistful, a little bit, and that’s new. If he does talk about his life before Schitt’s Creek, it never sounds particularly nostalgic. 

“Do you miss it?” David asks.

It’s dark enough that it’s hard to tell what flickers behind Patrick’s eyes. “Only when it rains,” Patrick jokes weakly. “I mean, yeah. I miss it.”

That’s the moment _how soon will you move on to the next place?_ jumps into David’s head. It’s the inevitable conclusion, hearing that Patrick misses his old life. Of course he misses what he had. David misses what he used to have every day. Well, less now than when he first moved here, but it’s still there, the ache, knowing that there’s more for you out there but not quite knowing how to get it.

Patrick is resolutely looking anywhere but at David, his fingers tangled in his napkin. Normally, by now, Patrick would have that stray paper folded into any manner of swan or crane or once, a very cute armadillo. Tonight, it’s just paper. “I sort of ran away from home.”

David tries not to do a double take. “Ran away. Like people are searching unmarked vans down by the river for your body right now?” 

Patrick gives him a rueful smile. “I’m not a missing person, David. They know I’m okay. They just...they don’t know where I am exactly.”

“What? Who?”

“Rachel knows. But not my parents. Or my other bandmates. They know why I wanted to leave but I might have been vague in my plans. I mean, I didn’t really have a plan. I just knew I needed to go.”

It’s something David hasn’t seen from Patrick since the night they watched the movie...that lost, fragile, broken look. 

“So I’m going to assume you didn’t come here expressly for our world-renowned osteopathic treatment then.”

Patrick shakes his head. “Yeah, I guess that was an unintended benefit, huh? No, I just...I woke up one morning and I knew I needed to be anywhere else. Like the walls were closing in on me? So I packed a bag and I...I didn’t even have my own car. The first place I went was the used car lot.” He gestures toward his practical though less than new vehicle that David has referred to more than once as a “death trap.” It has a rattle and has definitely emitted a distinct _kerplunk_ in David’s presence. But that is not the point. “And I bought the cheapest, most reliable car they had and I just...drove.”

David doesn’t know everything about the Canadian highway system, or provincial geography, but he knows enough to know that there were plenty of other roads Patrick could have taken that would not have led him here, now. He squeezes Patrick’s hand and Patrick squeezes back. “Not everyone is that brave. To just pick up and make a change.”

“Huh. Because I always thought it was kind of a coward’s move. My parents call me every Monday, Wednesday and Sunday at 7:00 pm so they make another attempt to convince me to come back home. You’ve heard the term ‘helicopter parents’? Mine are more like drones ...they’re very predictable and they’re always overhead. I know they mean well, but they worry.”

It hasn’t been that long that he’s known Patrick, but David knows for an absolute fact that if he woke up tomorrow and Patrick was gone, he’d do more than worry. He’s not exactly ready to tempt fate. “I don't think I blame them.”

At that, Patrick extracts himself from his side of the picnic table and sits back down right next to David, crowding his hips and enfolding him in his arms. Patrick’s heartbeat thunders in his chest, reverberating through their layers of clothing and jackets. He’s sure his own isn’t any slower. “It’s going to take more than phone calls to convince me to go back at this point, David.”

“It’s just...Schitt’s Creek isn’t exactly the Seychelles. I think it’s easy for people to want to leave.”

Patrick studies David for a moment, like maybe he can see right through him, then kisses the shell of David’s ear, and down to the hinge of his jaw. “I really like Schitt’s Creek.” Patrick says it in a way that makes David think that he’s including more than the town in that assessment. That it might involve some of the people. Or that Patrick might even be talking about him. “I can be anyone here. It doesn’t matter what I used to do, or who I used to be. Or if I’ll ever be able to play again. I could use my business degree here if I wanted. I mean, I’ve got the seniors singing Avett Brothers medleys now—anything is possible.”

“I know you’re not asking my opinion—”

“I have a feeling I’m going to get it though.”

David clears his throat. “Yes,” David says, thinking about the blank walls of Patrick’s apartment and how empty the space seems to be, how devoid it is of the brightness Patrick himself possesses. How he wants to help Patrick fill the space and make something new, that he loves just as much. Even if David didn’t think that was possible for himself until very, very recently. “Maybe there are good reasons to stay.”

Something warm and truthful flickers behind Patrick’s eyes. He’s quiet when he says, “Yeah, I’m starting to figure that out,” and he shuffles closer to David on the picnic bench.

They sit in silence, holding each other, David with his hand twined in the front of Patrick’s twill coat, Patrick’s head leaning on David’s shoulder. 

“I listened to some of your albums,” David confesses, when the quiet almost strong-arms the words out of his throat. He started downloading Patrick’s music pretty much the moment he realized who he was but he didn’t really start listening until now. It was a lot of jangly guitar and hard-driving piano and an occasional accordion and would probably be just outside of David’s typical musical preferences if he didn’t know and like and kiss the artist. But Patrick’s voice is warm and rich and comforting enough that David could wrap himself in it. It is just that David finds that listening to the lyrics is akin to reading Patrick’s diary and it seems intrusive, so David hasn’t heard very many songs all the way through.

“You listened?” Patrick raises a tentative eyebrow, his right hand clamped on David’s thigh. His fingers dig a bit and his voice is tight when he asks, “What did you think?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He huffs a laugh. “A lot of the music blogs had very similar reviews, so I’m used to it. I think Paste magazine once referred to us as an acquired taste, if you’ve recently burnt your tongue on mediocrity.” Patrick makes a face as if he’s reading the review again for the first time. “But that was early on and we were still figuring things out. We got better and the reviews got better, too.”

He’s seen how hard Patrick works at something like trivia, something inherently meaningless, so he can only imagine how Patrick treats something he’s truly passionate about...although he’s learning. Because David thinks he might qualify as one of those things.

“Just so you know, I didn’t actually listen to very much. Not because I didn’t like it. I just wasn’t sure if you wanted me to.”

“David, when have you ever done what anyone wanted you to?” Patrick jokes. Or doesn’t. David knows he is speaking from experience, especially when David rejects Patrick’s suggestions for potential trivia answers (he may be the musician but “(You Drive Me) Crazy" is obviously not a Beyoncé song) or places to go for drinks or even where to park. He made Patrick try three different parking places just tonight. “I don’t know how well those songs really represent me anymore, anyway. I was so young when I wrote half of them. I don’t think my arms had grown in all the way, let alone my brain or my heart. It’s probably better you haven’t listened.”

Patrick shifts slightly on the bench so a small shaft of light from the bulb hanging overhead shines onto his pensive face. It reveals more behind his eyes than just this conversation. David gives him the out. “Okay. I’ll take that under advisement.”

“Thank you.” Patrick smiles weakly and, squeezing David’s knee, glances back over at the truck. “Hey, we can’t forget about dessert.”

“Nice try.” David knows what Patrick is doing, distracting him with fried dough and sugar and chocolate and caramel sauces, but he allows it because he knows how hard it is to take all of the steps into the unknown at once. Even if the person that you’re doing it with makes it seem safer than it ever has before.

They buy churros—which Patrick says he’ll share with David, earning him the squintiest skunk-eye and scowl David can muster—and settle back onto the same side of the picnic table. Dragging the blanket across both of them, David coaxes Patrick back into his arms. 

“So what kinds of things did you have on your tour rider?” David asks as he dunks his fried dough into the rich sauce that accompanies it. He’s thinking of just dipping his fingers in it and licking them clean, one by one, just to see what Patrick would do.

“Oh, you know, the usual things,” Patrick starts, looking up at the sky from where he’s hunkered down against David’s chest. He blinks slowly, his lashes brushing the tops of his cheekbones. “Fresh blood of a lamb, eye of newt, a case of freshly chilled bottled waters, still not sparkling.” 

“Okay, you think you’re joking but Mariah used to ask for twenty white kittens and one hundred doves. Just because. And I once dated several of Kanye’s tour managers and the Hennessy and Grey Goose slushies he required didn’t involve any eye of newt, but they were plenty magical.” He nudges Patrick a little. “Come on, I really want to know.”

Patrick squirms a bit. He’s fine when they’re joking. He’s fine when they’re competing and teaming up against Stevie over misheard Prince song lyrics. He’s even fine when he’s telling David how much he loves David’s thighs and what he plans to do to them (okay, he does get a little stuttery when he gets too far into the details, but it’s charming and self-effacing and it makes David crazy with how much he likes it sometimes). But when it comes to his own past, that is where Patrick seems to struggle.

“Tray of sandwiches, Throat Coat tea, and local craft beers. Nothing scandalous.” Patrick tips his head back and David kisses the bridge of his nose. “Not like your precious Mariah.”

And then it’s easy to trade stories about celebrities they seem to know in common and favorite meals in favorite places until the homemade caramel sauce is gone and the taco stand crew is pulling down the metal curtain that signifies closing time. 

“I guess that means we don’t have to go home, but we can’t stay here,” Patrick says with David’s face in his neck as he breathes in the sweet tang of Patrick’s aftershave. “Wanna come back to my place?”

David does. So much. But as his brain buffers and filters new information with old, he remembers he has responsibilities. “We have inventory first thing tomorrow. I can’t,” he groans. David knows if he goes, they’ll do everything but sleep. “Raincheck?”

Patrick nods. “I’ll drive home slow. Take the back roads."

And he’s true to his word, winding through the countryside at a crawl, and either he or David leans in at every traffic light, every stop sign, every moose crossing, every fence that stretches on for longer than a kilometer. 

They say good-night in front of David’s apartment building for what feels like hours, until he ends up inviting Patrick inside anyway and then it’s less of a _good night_ and more of a _how can we stretch this into tomorrow?_

Even three hours before his alarm is set to sound, David tucks himself into bed reliving as much of their evening as he can, the way Patrick’s lips were sticky with caramel, his tongue sweet with sugar. How Patrick’s hands felt high on his back or skating their way under the hem of his sweater to seek out bare skin. At the softness of his voice when he’d say _“_ David,” against the sensitive skin of his throat, or when he’d press his lips on the shell of David’s ear, feather-light and worshipful.

And as revelatory as all of that is, there is something else that keeps David from dropping into a proper sleep. It’s that the more that David looks for the thing that will divide them, the more Patrick seems to find a way to bridge the gap, bolster it, and then pave right over it with ways that they’re just the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Distractivate for being six points sure this was ready to post and to the Rosebudd citizens who shout music artists at me when I need a punchline.


	6. Chapter 6

“Team building,” Patrick announces apropos of nothing while they wait for a Tuesday night trivia game to start at the cafe. He toys absently with the bracelet on David’s wrist but he’s broadcasting something more strategic, like this isn’t an entirely spontaneous thought. “Shut the Front Dior could definitely benefit from some team building.”

“No.” David responds immediately and withdraws his hand to gesticulate his point. “I do not do well with group work.”

“But we’re already on a team.” Patrick is bemused. David is less so. “Together.” Patrick points between David and himself. “You and me. Us.”

David’s veins buzz with the warm shot of adrenaline that Patrick referring to them as an _us_ creates. But still he needs to protest. Strenuously. All he can envision here, besides the additional presence of his teammates, is twigs and bugs and tents, because it’s Patrick and he’s unduly outdoorsy when he gets excited about something. Patrick even wanted to walk through the park earlier so they could get “fresh air” before the game, which, no. 

“No,” David repeats, this time slightly more sullenly.

“No?” Patrick might look hurt for a millisecond, but he quickly turns it into something more like heckling. “Come on, David. Think of the trust falls we could be doing.”

“I would rather fall off a bridge.” David is envisioning George _grasping_ him in places he hadn’t ever considered George grasping him and from the look of glee on Patrick’s face, maybe that was all he ever intended for this conversation. Just to poke at David until he breaks into a million tiny pieces of distressed...person with whom he is in a relationship.

Okay, so, they also haven’t really labelled anything yet, and David doesn’t seem to know how to ask. It feels presumptuous, but it also feels dangerous, like he’s putting himself too far out on a limb. Patrick certainly gives off serious Going Steady vibes but maybe David’s somehow managed to radiate I’m Not Into Labels and now he’s played himself. He’s starting to wish real life was more like a cotillion; it would be nice to be announced when he enters a room.

“If we want to be the strongest team we can be going into the Paradigm, I think we need to improve our communication, David. Remember last week and the ‘daughter of the mother sauce’ incident?”

Well, David doesn’t need to be _shamed_ into participating. He’d been distracted by the overactive and bulging nature of Patrick’s forearm veins as he’d pumped his fist about a previous correct answer, which then caused David to mishear the question about béchamel and bolognese. It doesn’t seem fair that now, all of a sudden, his misstep requires some sort of corporate-style intervention from upper management. 

“Okay. Fine.” David practically hisses. “But there need to be ground rules.” 

Patrick looks a bit too self-satisfied, like he just got his own way. Which he did, because truthfully, there aren’t many things David wouldn’t try to give him. “Fantastic. Every good team-building activity has ground rules.”

Great, so David just played right into his hands. Perfect. “There will be no camping, no hiking, no group yoga, no geocaching, no scavenger hunts, no obstacle courses—”

“Um, David?” Patrick interrupts. “You aren’t leaving me with much to work with here.”

“I didn’t ix-nay group tarot card readings or reiki.”

Patrick’s brow does that cute little furrowing thing and David reflexively leans over to kiss the crease away, even though he actively intended to put it there. His face softens as David pulls away. “Okay but what kind of team building activities are those?” 

“Ones that Gwyneth requires of everyone on her staff. I read it in Goop.”

“Goop,” Patrick repeats, still a little stunned by the litany of options David eliminated, apparently. “Well, we won’t be doing either of those...activities, I assure you.” The way Patrick’s mouth twists as he says _activities_ is almost exactly the way it moves when he’s trying to pronounce the designer name of some of David’s sweaters. 

“Also, no tree walks.”

“I know, David. You’re very uncomfortable with heights.”

Patrick listens. David knows he listens because David told Tennessee the story of parasailing with Anderson Cooper in passing last week while Patrick had been otherwise occupied, it seemed, folding his notebook paper into an origami dinosaur. Except here he is, armed with even more David-related knowledge. It’s disconcerting.

“And anyway, I already had something in mind that doesn’t take place outdoors and can benefit more than just the six of us.” 

“So then why do you look like you’re about to ruin my night?”

Patrick looks positively gleeful. “The senior center needs more hands on deck for their dance lessons. Turnout was, uh, a lot higher than expected.”

David does not do well with skin tags or old smells. The dancing, well, that is in a category all its own. But Patrick’s face is hopeful. He looks like he has faith in David, however misplaced, that this is going to make their team better at answering questions about mother sauces and Ed Hardy clothing. (The fact that question was even listed in the Fashion category was an abomination and David still hasn’t forgiven Ray. He even wrote a strongly worded letter that he firmly intends to send someday.)

It’s alarming how much David wants to meet that hopeful smile with something equally hopeful, even though he’s about to embark upon what will surely be an excruciating evening of both touching and talking to people. He grimaces instead, taking the last mozzarella stick off Patrick’s plate as if that is some kind of peace offering. 

“What time should I be there?” He finishes as haughtily as someone who has just been grifted into committing acts of altruism can be.

“Six o’clock. Right after dinner. It’s cabbage night.”

“Can’t wait.”

David whines about it for the entire four days leading up to the event, in the car on the way there, and in the vestibule as they’re all receiving their visitor badges. He whines and wheedles and cajoles Patrick about how he doesn’t dance and he doesn’t like to connect with people and anyway, he’s a lot to take in all at once sometimes and maybe they shouldn’t experiment with the impact of all of his Davidness on the elderly population.

Patrick listens patiently as he fastens his badge onto his sweater and David full-body cringes at the idea that he’s going to have to somehow replicate that maneuver on his own Philip Lim. 

“If it’s okay with you, I’m going to take this one complaint at a time.” Patrick pauses, waiting for an objection, which David does not give. He likes being heard, even if it seems like Patrick is about to use logic to gently dismantle some of the things he’s just said. “Okay. You say don’t dance. Do you think I dance?”

“No. You have legs like tree trunks.” 

“So sweet, thank you.” Patrick pouts but keeps walking, propelling David down a long corridor as he holds his visitor pass in the general vicinity of his chest. This knit will not be harmed. “This isn’t really about dancing so much as it’s about having something fun for the residents to do that isn’t sitting in their rooms. And anyway, I’ve heard your Little Mister Pageant stories.”

“Tap dancing at twelve is hardly foxtrotting with the Ballas family,” David demurs, although he’s done that, too. His mother may have desired a slot on _Dancing with the Stars_ back in the mid-2000s and yes, he may have assisted her in learning some general choreography. That is hardly the point, however, and nothing Patrick needs to know.

“Okay, well, foxtrotting is next week, and you just sort of have to sway in place, so.” Patrick and Ted, who appears with a cardboard box of supplies, lead them down yet another drearily-wallpapered corridor. “Objection two, as I heard it, was you don’t connect with people.”

“Objection is overruled,” Stevie says from over David’s shoulder. She wasn’t much more thrilled about this outing than David had been but David saw the flask she’d tucked into her pocket and something about his own suffering seemed to make Stevie’s dissipate. “I saw you _connecting_ with Patrick in the backseat of the car just moments ago.”

“Okay, Marcia Clarke, court is adjourned,” David dismisses as Patrick swings open a wide door, the tips of Patrick’s ears going pink at the mention of their last (apparently well-attended) makeout session. “All right, so what about objection three?” He can’t believe he’s asking for his complaints to be invalidated now. What is wrong with him? 

“Oh, that one is the easiest one to refute.” Patrick stops, planting his feet right in front of David and squaring his hands on David’s arms. He is looking almost too steadily into David’s eyes and David can feel something earnest and heartfelt coming as swift as a hand grenade. “Think of it like bird-watching.”

Well, that isn’t quite what David expected. He tries to scowl but he’s afraid his face won’t move that way anymore. “Bird-watching? I told you I’ve been working on my calves.”

“No, not like you have bird legs,” Patrick shakes him off, as expected. “They just like looking at beautiful things,” Oh there it is, the hand grenade meant to obliterate all of David’s defenses. Which David could choose to argue with, but honestly, arguing doesn’t work. Patrick will just double down on sincerity and David will likely end up a besweatered puddle on the dingy linoleum, trouble he clearly doesn’t need.

He reaches over to squeeze Patrick’s shoulders the way he’s squeezing David’s and gives his bottom lip a chaste little nip. “Okay, that’s...nice.” 

"But if anyone starts to, you know, clutch at their chest, we have the nitroglycerin on standby.”

“Okay, less nice.” 

Patrick releases David and picks up the clipboard they’d handed him at the front desk with the list of signed up residents. He gives David a light swat on the ass with it. “So now that all your concerns have been addressed, we can move on, right?”

“But.” David thinks he still needs to reiterate his earlier point. “This still isn’t a good idea.”

He’s roundly ignored because everyone around him just keeps moving. When it’s clear that this is happening with him or without him, David figures he might as well join everyone else in setting up. Or in supervising the set-up. He’s good at making decisions. That can be his contribution.

The room itself isn’t all that expansive, with plain beige walls and rickety card tables, which Patrick instructs everyone to start pushing to the outside of the room so George can set up refreshments and Tennessee can start making name tags. Great, now manual labor is included in this nightmare. 

“Do you think maybe you could meet us halfway here, David?” Patrick says as he scoots a chair under a table and spreads out a pink plastic tablecloth. Apparently they’ve chosen Depressing Sock Hop as the theme of this party and David does not remember signing off on that. Some real flowers could have made this room a hundred percent less drab and Patrick’s plan to hang things from the ceiling isn’t going to draw the eye away from all this bleakness. But it doesn’t matter because he isn’t technically participating or responsible. Patrick gives David a terribly pointed look that includes an eyebrow tilt he doesn’t appreciate. “A little compromise can go a long way.”

David knows that there is more beneath that statement as he makes minimum effort to help straighten the tacky tablecloth and tries to think of ways to convince Patrick he’s twisted his ankle while standing perfectly still. “I’m still here, aren’t I? I’ve compromised plenty.”

What flits across Patrick’s face then is almost offensive to David, the amount of disbelief one person can convey with the flicker of an eyelid and the brief pull of a lip. “Hmm, yes, you are the very model of a modern major compromiser.” 

“Well, as long as you recognize it,” David calls to Patrick’s retreating back as he trots off with George and a step ladder to hang the lines that will hold the precisely folded white paper cranes that Patrick carted in with them to serve as decoration.

The residents start to filter in a little before six while Patrick and Stevie are still setting up the sound system and David is pouting in a darkened corner. It’s mostly gray-haired women who are dressed in polyester knit sweaters and elastic-waist pants, though there are enough men to keep Tennessee and Stevie busy dancing to Patrick’s pre-made soundtrack of fifties and sixties standards. All week Patrick has been humming songs that David’s grandmother used to play in her parlor when they’d go for a visit: Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and Ray Charles and Billie Holliday. The room smells overwhelmingly like talcum powder and Aqua Velva aftershave and David only enjoys the part where Patrick keeps getting (both sets of) his cheeks pinched. One of the women, Gretchen per her name tag, even licks her palm and tries to smooth down one of Patrick’s more errant curls over Patrick’s protests.

Dot, Patrick’s favorite choir member, takes one look at Stevie and announces she would rather dance with the Swiffer, but Patrick soothes and placates and works his Patrick-magic pairing residents with each of the other teammates. At first glance, Ted seems to be everyone’s number one choice of partner, since he’s basically the human equivalent of oatmeal—warm and bland and ultimately heart-healthy. But Patrick is an easy second, as the women crowd around him, carefully plotting how turns will be taken so that everyone gets equal time with their preferred partners.

It isn’t as if none of the women are clamoring to dance with him—he’s received several complimentary-seeming once-overs and some downright lewd gestures—but David isn’t exactly clamoring to be danced with, either.

“Joan, I’d like you to meet David,” Patrick introduces. Patrick is displaying Big Camp Counselor Energy and David would be lying if he said he didn’t want to get that same energy in his bed later. Even if Patrick is punishing him right now with the promise of increased team collaboration and well-developed trust. Patrick gives David’s lower back a rub, a gentle circle that possibly seeks forgiveness while still pushing him forward. “Be nice to him. He’s skittish.”

“I used to have horses. I won’t let him spook.” Joan has a deep voice and is standing distressingly close, which, _dance space_ , and David finds himself taking two protective steps backward. “Honey, stand still, my new hip doesn’t allow me to chase men like I used to.”

“Of course not,” David mumbles, finding his equilibrium enough to approximate some sort of ballroom-type hold. He can still hear his mother lecturing him about providing a strong frame and his spine straightens by muscle memory. _Shoulders back, chin up._

From about two feet south of his very raised chin, Joan tugs on his sleeve. “Okay, showboat. How about we retire the tryout for the Arthur Murray School of Dance and just move in time with the music?” She demonstrates by rocking back and forth on her heels and tapping her foot to _Beyond the Sea._ “Given that choice of sweater, I never thought I’d need to say this, but we gotta loosen you up.”

“I’m sorry, but I just have naturally firm muscle tone,” David protests.

“Yeah, that’s definitely what that is.” Joan reaches up, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck to readjust his position. “I can’t dance with a giraffe. Give me something to work with here.”

“Okay, okay. I’m trying.” David reluctantly relaxes his head and shoulders and finds himself stooping slightly so that he’s more accessible. He almost wants to go flag Patrick down to point out how much he’s compromising right now. Probably gloating about such a thing is considered gauche, but fuck it, he’s making strides. He wants Patrick to know. “What if we move over this way a bit?”

A few feet away, Patrick is smiling from ear to ear while he spins Dot in dizzying circles, despite the fact that the song does not lend itself to wild flailing. Gregarious Ted is waltzing Gretchen through the crowd, while Stevie is staring miserably into the middle distance as Edgar hangs onto her for dear life. When she notices David’s teasing smirk, she surreptitiously flips him the bird.

“You like the birds?” Joan asks, momentarily confusing David and forcing him to reassemble his face so as not to frighten her. Once he realizes what she’s referring to, he follows Joan’s raised finger to see the line of white paper cranes Patrick hung hovering above their heads. He has to admit it gives the room a certain ambiance. Tokyo Dance Hall, circa 1951, as translated through a rural Canadian lens. “We helped Patrick make those. He said it was to help with our aches and pains but I think he just needed cheap labor.”

“That seems very on brand for him, honestly.” David suddenly pictures a dank room full of elderly men and women with Patrick at the front, patiently explaining precision creasing to them. He isn’t surprised that Patrick outsourced some of the work, though, there have to be more than a hundred of them hanging around the room. “He has a tendency to put people to work.”

“That he does. But so artistic. Has a pretty voice. Your young man is quite the catch,” Joan says as David moves her around the room to _Can’t Help Falling in Love_ _._ Her skin is cool in his hand and she reminds him of his grandmother with all of her hard edges and her dry wit. He wonders if her bialy are any good. “Tight little tush on him, too.”

“Y-yes.” David tries not to choke on his own saliva. “He’s very...nice.” That doesn’t really encompass all the things he’s thinking about Patrick now, about how spending time with the seniors helps Patrick feel like he’s building something here. And how he believes he can make that feeling grow by sharing it with others. Who thinks like that? 

“Terrible card player though. When he gets a good hand, you can see it all over his face. Just lights up like a Christmas tree. You know when he goes all in, he’s all in.” Joan tsks. “Not that I’m complaining. I won ten bucks off him the other day.”

“Oh, yes. He was very grouchy about that. He may have said you cheat.”

Joan laughs. It’s deep and throaty, just like her voice. “He’s right; I do cheat. I may be old but I’m not a saint,” she says, turning them so that they’re dancing closer to where Patrick and Dot have finally slowed down into an easy sway. Patrick is animated as he tells Dot a story and she’s hanging on his every word, enraptured. “He was very excited to bring you here and have us meet you.”

“Hmm.” That does something in David’s stomach, flattens him a little. It’s getting harder and harder to manufacture reasons why this isn’t going to work. Patrick being excited isn’t a shock, necessarily. He gets excited about scheduling apps and thin crust pizza and his default setting is Enthusiastic Joiner. But having that connect to David, that he ranks up there with color-coded day planners and a cracker-cornmeal crust, well. That’s something. “How about a refreshment?” David says when his mouth suddenly becomes very very dry.

After they consume the sickeningly sweet yet oddly delicious ice cream and 7-Up punch that Tennessee concocted, David ends up dancing with about ten other women and a handful of the men, none of whom he enjoys even remotely as much as he enjoyed Joan. Patrick is almost always somewhere in his peripheral vision and he’s doing one of his semi-regular check-ins, a firm hand dipping low on David’s back as he leans in for a kiss.

Patrick’s hairline is glistening with sweat from all the running around he’s been doing. Neither Patrick nor Ted has been off their feet for a second, either dancing or fetching refreshments or taking requests for other songs to play. David pushes a damp curl off of Patrick’s forehead before he’s able to move away again. “This isn’t so bad, right? Everyone’s having fun.”

“I never said it wouldn’t be fun,” David argues.

“Didn’t you though? I mean, I guess a hostage situation could be fun, if you really open up the definition.”

David did, in fact, at one point refer to team-building as a hostage situation and now that he’s almost completed the task, he does feel slightly guilty about that. 

“I may have been incorrect.”

Patrick doesn’t even pretend to be shocked at that admission. He seems so relaxed tonight. It makes David’s chest swell with affection, fills it to bursting. “Well, you’re doing a great job. The ladies are buzzing about you and I think Joan might even invite you to our next poker night.”

“I may draw the line at card games.” David makes a show of looking cross, but in reality, he might actually attend such an event. If there are six, for optimal game play. He’ll compromise now but he’s not an animal.

“Well, I hear that boundaries are important, so.” Patrick moves to plant a soft kiss on David’s cheek and it’s probably stupid how weak in the knees it makes him. 

David starts helping Tennessee with the photo booth they’d set up and it isn’t long before Patrick is thanking everyone for coming and announcing the last ten minutes of the dance over everyone’s disappointed groans. No one seems to want to leave. It makes David oddly emotional and he’s swallowing hard past a lump in his throat when he looks down to see Joan standing in front of him, offering her hand. 

“May I have this dance?”

This time Joan is the one who leads, and clearly she’d been gaslighting him about her dancing ability, because she guides him gracefully across the floor as _All I Have to Do Is Dream_ lofts over the space. David knows Patrick packed this section of the mix with songs he called “subliminally sleep-inducing” because he is a monster who wants people to practice good sleep hygiene after he riles them up with physical activity.

“So how do you think it went? Will we need to do this again?” David questions. Granted, he is scared that the answer is _yes_ but at the same time, it’s the answer he thinks he wants. Next time he’ll just need to do more to curate the decorations, brighten up the hors d'oeuvres a bit, maybe locate a caterer they could call in for cheap...

“Well, I think it made us forget about our angina for an hour, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I don’t know?” David has no idea but it sounds at the very least like a backhanded compliment. “It seems like people had a nice enough time.”

Joan gives David a reassuring pat and he doesn’t even wince as she goes for his sweater. “You and your friends did a great job. Says a lot about you that you’d put in all this effort for people you don’t know just to make them happy.”

“I mean, it’s about building on our strengths as a team,” David finds himself saying as a means of deflection, even though those words would never have voluntarily left his mouth even twenty-four hours ago. Maybe not even twenty-four minutes ago. “I’m sure Patrick’s told you that we’re going to…” 

“Call it what you want, Davy, I just think it’s something a good person does.” 

“Are we doing Davy?” 

“Well, I am. You can do what you want.” Maybe Joan and Patrick are long-lost relatives because they seem to have an eerily similar gift for getting under his skin in a very short amount of time without him minding all that much. “But from the way he talks about you and from what I’ve seen here tonight, I’m fairly certain that it isn’t just a good hand of cards that lights Patrick up.” 

That causes David to swallow harder and he makes a noise he hopes sounds like assent. In response, Joan dances herself and David over to where Patrick and Dot are talking to Stevie and Tennessee as they sway slowly to the Everly Brothers. She taps Patrick on the arm and places David’s hand onto Patrick’s shoulder. “Here ya go, Patty-cakes. I owe Dot a spin and your boyfriend keeps stepping on my toes.”

David doesn’t know what he should protest first, the boyfriend or the toes or the nickname, and Patrick’s mouth opens and closes a few times as if for once, he is at a loss for a quick retort. “We’re, uh—”

“No, we haven’t said—”

Connecting David’s more flapping hand to the one of Patrick’s that is nearest, Joan slowly backs away. “Okay boys, that seems like something you two can work out while you dance. Dot, let’s hoof it.” And with that, the women retreat into a sea of semi-rhythmically swaying senior citizens, leaving Patrick and David alone on the periphery. The Everly Brothers have faded into Louis Armstrong warbling about a kiss to build a dream on.

“Hi.” 

“Hi.” 

David takes a deep breath in as an arm winds its way more firmly around his waist and he settles his own hands at Patrick’s hips. Patrick rests his chin briefly against David’s shoulder as if he’s regaining his bearings. David doesn’t mind having a chance to do the same.

“So what Joan said…” Patrick starts after he lifts his head and fixes a gaze on David that ripples down his spine in pleasant shockwaves.

“Patty-Cakes will certainly haunt my dreams. Possibly also my waking hours.” David can’t help taunting.

“Shoot. I was hoping we could agree that was a medication-induced slip of the tongue.”

“Sadly, no.” David jokes but then finds himself suddenly unable to meet Patrick’s eyes. “But was the other—”

“—boyfriend. Yeah, no. I liked her calling you my boyfriend.” Patrick finishes for him. David doesn’t have to look directly at Patrick to know that he’s doing something entirely too endearing with his face right now. “Didn’t you?”

David’s standing in a room next to an honest-to-god punch bowl. With a plastic ladle. Surrounded by thirty members of a retirement community, as weirdly supportive and intrusive as they may be. There are fliers posted over Patrick’s left shoulder that advertise prostate health and mammogram screenings and denture creams. This is not at all where David envisioned having this conversation, but he’s having it. As Patrick waits, his dark eyes wide and sure and deeply all in. 

“Did I like being called your boyfriend?” David repeats, for posterity, for his own benefit, for a chance to stall his own mutinous heart leaping out of his chest. “I believe that I could enjoy taking on that title, yes.”

“Yeah. Yes. A title. Okay, good.” Patrick’s shoulders straighten as he regains his easy confidence, the solid way he carries himself. David gets it, has always gotten, how easy Patrick is to read, how easy is to want to read him, how easy it would be if he could flip to the end and see how this all turns out. But yes, he wants to write an entirely new chapter. Boyfriends. “Glad to hear it. Because I already bought the matching t-shirts and since they’re personalized, I can’t return them.”

“Well, you’ll have to take them back because personalized t-shirts are clearly very incorrect.”

“Okay. But then how will people know you’re my boyfriend?”

He rubs his hands over Patrick’s broad shoulders, lazy but still goal-directed and Patrick’s eyes say more than his mouth does, just watching as David touches him. David still isn’t sure how to be a boyfriend, if he’s equipped for everything that mantle entails, if he won’t still somehow ruin this. But Patrick isn’t hesitant; he’s simmering with affection and want and that same steadiness he always emits, like bright hot rays of the sun.

“I’m thinking that you could do something slightly more festive, yet still understated.”

“An ad in the Elmdale Chronicle.” Patrick brushes his lips against David’s neck, his arms tightening around his waist. The song has ended and the residents are beginning to file out, but Patrick doesn’t release his hold. 

“A crown and scepter.”

“Sounds kind of flashy, David. Skywriting? I already made you a thousand paper cranes.”

“I think the legend is that the person who folds the thousand paper cranes gets granted the wish. The wish is non-transferable.” _Way to read the fine-print on the romantic gesture, David._

“I am willing to run the risk, if that’s okay with you, and just call you my boyfriend. That’s my wish.”

“I believe I have that authority. But if I don’t, well, we’ll do what we have to do,” David responds softly and Patrick’s lips brush against his. 

Patrick’s next kiss is slow and deliberate and sweet, and under a ceiling full of outsourced paper cranes, David can feel the hairline crack in his heart beginning to form, the fissure that will allow all of that light to finally shine in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Seven is coming in hot later today so please stick around.
> 
> Thank you to Distractivate for the beta and putting up with me, always.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Chapter Six earlier today so please start there if you haven't already seen it!

It starts with a blemish. A vague itchy feeling on his upper back and a blemish he cannot seem to eradicate through any of his usual means. And then there’s a tiny blister on his shoulder that he notices while exfoliating and after that, a vague achy feeling in his joints as he’s getting dressed for work.

It takes a few days as more unexplained, unwanted bumps start to crop up, angry red and itchy, until Stevie is the one who pieces it all together.

“You have the chickenpox,” she announces while flashing the screen of WebMD in front of David’s tired itchy eyes and his tired itchy skin. “Leave it to you to get a boyfriend and the chickenpox in the same week like a seventh grader.”

“Okay,” David says, grabbing the phone with perhaps more force than strictly necessary so he can then use the blunted edge to try to scratch a particularly maddening spot on his upper back. “My boyfriend—” Saying that word in conjunction to Patrick still sets something in his stomach aflutter, “—shall never set his gaze upon me in this state.” 

“Sounds like you’re gonna have to go full Phantom then, David. Don’t you already own a cloak?” 

He does, although it’s more of a capelet. But that’s neither here nor there. “You’re absolutely no help.”

“Was I supposed to be?”

After an equally frustrating conversation with his mother does little to confirm whether he has not, in fact, ever contracted the chickenpox (“Someone in our household suffered mightily from the plight of varicella, David, but perhaps my memory doth betray me and that was the actor who played my ex-stepson’s landlord on _Sunrise Bay_.”), he starts to believe what Stevie, the internet, and three different nurse practitioners have told him. 

He’s prescribed medication to reduce symptoms but it’s still a miserable and humiliating existence. His balms and his salves and his oils are no match for the rash he’s sprouted on every square inch of his skin. And on top of the unfortunate change in personal aesthetics, he’s so fucking _uncomfortable_. He can barely sleep with all the discomfort; he can barely even think. He certainly can’t go into work. He can’t bear to look at himself and he cannot, under any circumstances, be seen by other human beings.

All in all, it’s a very Interflix and Scratch existence.

Stevie spends the week passing in and out of his peripheral vision like a snarky, itch-free ghost as David moans and covers all their mirrors between fits of ardent yet futile scratching. He’s been avoiding his own cell phone because he’s worried Patrick will want to somehow help him and in his weakened state, he’s almost sure he’ll accept. 

He does have Stevie read him the texts that Patrick sends, checking in, but he doesn’t trust her at all to send appropriate responses (he is certain he will find his text chain with Patrick filled with eggplant and peach emojis and probably unauthorized photos of himself napping, if Stevie has her way). It's easiest just to fling the phone under a pillow and hope that letter-writing and shouting through open windows come back into vogue as preferred means of communication.

David is in the midst of his umpteenth application of calamine lotion when there’s a knock on his bedroom door, which then opens unaided, and someone who looks remarkably like Patrick enters carrying a fabric grocery tote bag and a resealable container. He must be imagining him because David clearly did not sanction any conversation where he is visible to the naked (and present) eye.

Yelping at the intrusion, David sets a new record for speed-hiding and immediately yanks the duvet over his head. “No! Hey! Get out!” He hopes he sounds imposing through the layers of goose down. 

“Not really the reception I was hoping for, David, but I just wanted to say hi.” 

“Hi. And goodbye. Thank you for coming; you absolutely must leave.”

“Hi.” Patrick’s voice sounds as if he has backed slowly away. “Listen, I promise I’ll go but if you think you’re saving me from some sort of—”

“—traumatic experience, yes. Please respect my boundaries.” He makes an aggrieved noise that’s probably muffled by the blanket. “It’s a very difficult time.”

“I know it is. And I do want to respect your boundaries. If you want me to go instead of making you lunch, I absolutely will.”

The thing is, he misses Patrick. He misses Patrick, who has already experienced the chickenpox at an appropriate age, and is here now to say hi, which is adorable and means that Patrick might miss him, too. 

“What kind of lunch?” David asks, because he also has priorities and a rumbling stomach.

He thinks Patrick might sound amused, which means David hasn't driven him away quite yet. “It’s soup. I may have also stopped for a mall pretzel because I know how much you like them.”

And it’s not like Patrick just stopped for that pretzel. He had to drive out of his way for that pretzel. “It’s unfair that you know that, but yes, I do like them. And thank you.” 

“So should I leave the bag then?” 

Patrick has brought him mall pretzels and soup and he’s here and truly, it’s just nice to hear his voice. And since he’s here, that means he also brought his face and his arms and his lips and all the very nice things that accompany them. Like Patrick’s stupid little smile, for instance; David's never seen a smile he likes as much as Patrick’s. He can’t take this blanket off, though, since his hair definitely hasn’t seen a comb or product for days and he cannot imagine the six types of horror that the pox and his lack of a skin care routine has wrought.

“I think I would like for you to stay.” David says, although he _knows_ he’d like Patrick to stay. “Under the following conditions: All the lights stay off. Do not make direct eye contact. All pox and poultry-related jokes are strictly forbidden.”

“I left all my pox jokes at home, David, I promise. They wouldn’t fit in the tote. Even though they were itching to climb in.”

“How very dare—” David points a commanding finger toward the door. (Maybe the door. Could be the bureau or the closet. He can’t see.)

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Patrick wheeze-laughs. “I promise. No more.”

David feigns consideration through the small lapse in conversation. “Okay. But I still reserve the right to ask you to leave at any time.”

“Always.” Patrick agrees. “Wow. I can’t believe you’re letting me do this.” 

He acts like it is some sort of privilege, which makes David wonder if it is. It also makes David wonder why he’s so willing to concede, other than he wants to be close to his brand new boyfriend again. “Yes, well, I’m very magnanimous in this state. Also, I’m starving and I smell—” he sniffs imperiously, “—something herbaceous.”

“It’s a special family recipe. My mom’s famous chicken noodle soup.” Patrick pauses, like he’s just realized the correlation. “A little hair of the dog that bit you, I guess.” 

“You promised no more jokes!” 

“Seriously. It didn’t even—” Patrick seems to be suppressing another laugh and while David can’t see his stupidly smug expression, he knows it’s there. “—it’s an unfortunate coincidence, is all. But I’m going to turn off the lights now, per our agreement, which I plan on abiding by. Mostly so you don’t make me leave before I get to have any soup. It’s delicious.”

Even underneath his layers, David can sense the change in lighting as Patrick follows through on at least one promise. 

“So you’re really just going to hide from me?” Patrick asks as he returns to David’s bedside.

“Yes,” David says simply. It really should go without saying at all. He’s a fright show under here and if there is one thing he’d like to hold onto since his dignity clearly is no longer an option, it’s his appearance. “I want you to remember me fondly.”

“David, I can barely see my own hand in front of my face. How will I give you any tea if I can’t see you?”

David would not mind some tea and he bravely pokes his hand out from under the covers to accept whatever Patrick is offering.

Patrick laughs again. “Oh, sorry, I haven’t actually made any yet. But I will now, if you’re interested.”

David huffs loudly then lowers one corner of the bedding to dramatically reveal one eye and probably one monstrous eye bag and god knows how many blemishes, but hopefully the shadows help obscure them. Or if he could get close enough, he’d like to bury his face right in the divot of Patrick’s clavicle, where it’s exposed under Patrick’s henley. “Okay, well, I wouldn’t reject tea. Or a pretzel.”

Patrick appears inordinately pleased for someone who has just been assigned a menial task. “Okay, good, I’ll go make that happen then,” and then with a smile, he leans down to drop a kiss on David’s newly available temple before he goes.

A marching band wends its way through David’s chest at the utter ease of the gesture and at how willing Patrick is to care for him. The feeling is unwieldy; he should probably lie back down. So after Patrick exits, David enshrouds himself once more, blindly searching for his abandoned cellphone and some kind of peace of mind under the dark covers.

[5:48 p.m. Help. Someone is here to Florence Nightingale me back to health and I think I’m allowing it.]

[5:50 p.m. yes, I know. Clara Barton borrowed my apt keys.]

[5:51 p.m. And you just handed them over?? I am too unwell to accept suitors.]

[5:52 p.m. so sorry. I didn’t know the chicken pox turned you into an antebellum southern woman. please tell the vapors to delay and sweet lil ol’ Patrick will make it all better.]

[5:53 p.m. hdu.]

“Hey, are you ready for this now?” Patrick asks gently from outside the soft walls of David’s fluffy fortification. “It’s marigold and the girl at the health food store says that it has healing properties.”

There’s a full ten seconds where David is entirely still, not only because Patrick conversed with a stranger about chicken pox tea on his behalf, but because accepting the tea means emerging from his cocoon. And emerging from his cocoon means watching Patrick's sweet face pretend not to be horrified and David doesn’t think he’s quite ready for all that. But his throat is a little dry and he desperately wants to see Patrick and shedding his chrysalis means having both of those things at once. “Don’t look at me,” he says waspishly, pulling the blanket down with a flourish. 

“There he is,” Patrick hands the steaming mug to David, who blushes with the naked desire he can still read on Patrick’s face. “C’mon, you look great. A little flushed from being underneath the duvet, but great.” He skims a hand over David’s flat hair, brushing it back off his forehead. “I bet we’d be the same height now with your hair all flattened down like this.”

“Okay. That’s enough.” David grips the warm mug more tightly and takes a sip so that he doesn’t say something he’ll regret. There’s still a pounding in his chest that reminds him that this feeling is new and tender and still breakable. He’s not used to this kind of attention—this earnest, unfazed, glorious attention. He’s used to craving it, maybe, but not getting it. Which makes him joyous and melancholy at all once and Patrick is still standing in the half-light, waiting for a verdict on tea. The tea is perfect and citrusy with just a hint of spice, and at the very least, his nerve-endings feel immediately soothed. He feels warm inside and he’s unsure whether it’s the hot liquid or the person caring for him. David makes a little keening noise into the ceramic that reverberates around the cup. “This is very nice tea.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Patrick says, proud. “And I know you wanted your pretzel now but I thought it might pair better with your lunch.”

At this point, David is too floaty from herbal tea and sleep deprivation to argue about proper pretzel timing, so he waves a few fingers of agreement. 

“And I was thinking that while all that heats up, maybe I could clean up around here a little bit.” Patrick is standing next to what David has less-than-affectionately termed Calamine Caverns, a little hill of discarded cotton balls that he hasn’t had the energy to dispose of properly once the wastebasket overflowed. He’s disgusting and covered in pink anti-itch goo and Patrick is just...trying so hard. His gut clenches at the aching sweetness of the gesture. “Maybe we could even get you into a nice colloidal oatmeal bath, if you’re up for it?”

He is up for anything that will help soothe some of the irritation of his skin, so after he finishes the rest of his tea and provides detailed instructions about the location of correct pajamas and fluffy towels, David finds himself lounging in the tub. A thirty minute warm bath has almost restorative powers and David emerges feeling...less itchy, and at the very least, slightly more human. 

The pajamas he’d specifically requested are folded neatly on the vanity near the sink and after he dresses and moisturizes (it’s the least he can do), he can hear the quiet domestic sounds of the kitchen faucet turning on and Patrick humming to himself as cabinet doors open and close, and a knife rasps against the cutting board. 

In his bedroom, his essential oil diffuser has been refilled with its healing blend of eucalyptus and spearmint and his comforter has been replaced with the spare one he keeps in the linen closet. When he lifts the covers to climb back into bed, he realizes that the sheets are also fresh and his fermenting pile of cotton balls has been handily eradicated. 

Apparently Patrick is very speedy. 

He tucks himself back into the fresh linens, unsure whether the new lightness in his chest is Patrick or rash-adjacent. He lies there for a few minutes, relaxed almost to the point of sleep, when a sudden weight brackets David’s legs. He fully expects to unsheath his head and find loud warm brown eyes staring down at him, but instead, Patrick has bestowed upon him a tray full of soup and mall pretzel and juice. 

“Wow. This looks amazing,” David says truthfully and reaches for his spoon. The napkin underneath his silverware is folded into the shape of a flower and Patrick notices him noticing the detail. “Thank you. I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week.”

“Well, it’s probably mostly selfish then. We can’t have our star player perishing so close to the Paradigm. I just hope all this isn’t because another team is trying to hemlock us out of the running,” Patrick partially deflects. 

“Well, this would not be my first poisoning.” Kris Jenner is a bitch, David thinks, but Patrick already knows that story, and it’s hard to forcefully inflict chickenpox on a grown man. David dips his spoon into the steaming broth, bringing it tentatively to his lips, and slurps the contents with great aplomb. A delicate egg noodle practically melts in his mouth and he makes a noise that could be considered indecent, but he truly does not care. It’s delicious. He’d make louder noises but he’s trying not to be gross on every available level. “Ohmygod,” he exclaims.

Patrick is inordinately pleased with himself. “You like it?” David wants to drop his face in the bowl and snorkel in the salty goodness but that seems like a mental image best left undemonstrated. “I had my mom text me her recipe. That stuff saved my life in college.”

“Well, it’s incredible. Tell your mother she’s a miracle worker.” David takes a second slurp and tries not flail further, though he wants to. He isn’t sure why he keeps trying to restrain himself anymore since nothing seems to bother Patrick. He’s unflappable. “You really didn’t have to do this. No one else would have done this.”

“I wanted to.” Patrick doesn’t even hesitate. It’s as if he doesn’t know anything but how to be earnest and well-meaning. Granted, he does have that sturdy farmboy quality about him. Maybe David’s medication is making his brain melt because the phrase _100 percent grain-fed beef_ dances unbidden into his head. “Thanks for letting me do it, David.”

It occurs to David that this might mean something, that he’s allowed Patrick access to parts of himself that he hasn’t always had access to, and this might be perceived as progress.

“Anytime,” David says and he’s worried that Patrick knows he means it, but Patrick doesn’t seem worried, because he bends over to kiss David. It’s soft and a little slow and when he pulls away, David asks, “Will you please stay with me until I fall asleep?”

“Of course.” Even in the dim light, David can see the thousand watt quality of Patrick’s smile, like he’s just won a prize.

Patrick toes off his shoes and clambers into bed where David arranges things so that Patrick is lying flat and David can drape more easily atop his ribcage, his arm flung over Patrick’s waist. From there, Patrick is available to toy with the strands of David’s hair, softly pulling his fingers through the barely tamed waves. 

“Is this better?” Patrick asks as David nuzzles contentedly into his chest. “Can you sleep like this if I’m reading my phone?”

“Mmhm.” David’s last dose of medication is already dragging Patrick’s words slowly through his brain. He feels like he could sleep for a week, especially if he's curled up with Patrick. “Will you read to me?”

“About memory palaces? I believe the last time we talked about memory palaces you called them ‘cockamamie.’”

“But then we kissed, so I have a very positive regard for them. Plus, it’ll put me right to sleep.”

“That feels like a knock on my kissing, but.” Patrick’s fingernails scratch blissfully against David’s scalp. “I think doing this will put you to sleep too, if I keep at it.”

“But I can learn by osmosis.” David rubs his ear against Patrick’s sternum, demonstrating this clearly scientific theory. “Read.”

“Bossy,” Patrick breathes, readjusts under David’s movements, and then does exactly what he is told. “‘Memory is the treasure house of the mind, wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved...”

David cuddles closer, nestling as deeply as he can into the clean-laundry smell of Patrick’s soft henley and the constant perfect drumbeat of his heart. 

“Mmm. This is why I like you,” David announces cheerfully to Patrick’s shirt, too relaxed to feel any guile or artifice. He’s not even sure what _this_ is, other than everything. This is just Patrick.

Above him, Patrick keeps reading, though David thinks he can hear the newly formed smile in his voice. 

Patrick is smiling and reading and stroking his hand through David’s hair, rubbing down over the knob of his spine and further, to the small of his back. David is only half-awake but the lingering touches are easy and real. David wants to do something to preserve it, to make sure he can keep it. 

He’s tired, though, and he actually feels better—well cared for—and that seems like enough for now. 

Some amount of time passes, how much time David has no idea; there is movement, Patrick curses under his breath when something falls. David’s limbs move without his express directive; a warm weight presses down on him. Something cool brushes his forehead, skin on skin, maybe something softer. 

Lips. 

Patrick is kissing his forehead, his brain finally connects. Patrick’s breath is feather-light against his hairline as he says, “Good night, David Rose. This is why I like you, too.”

* * *

After a few more days of sleep and calamine lotion and several more bowls of Mrs. Brewer’s Miracle Chicken Soup, David is on the mend and back among the land of the living, relatively scar-free.

There’s a new ease that lives in his chest now, in the space he used to think was too damaged and too much and too unlovable. 

Everything is different but nothing has changed. 

* * *

Standing outside of Patrick’s door now isn’t nearly as nerve-racking as it was the first time because David, for once, has clearly defined boundaries. 

David arrives right at seven, with the best bottle of wine Wendy could rustle out of the backroom of the Blouse Barn and a black gift bag under the other. He’s wearing his favorite Neil Barrett sweater and jeans that Patrick once called ‘hiphuggers’ because bless him, he still has no idea how to identify clothing. _It’s fine,_ David tells himself, _I’ll teach him._

Patrick answers the door with the phone to his ear, waving David into the apartment. The air is fragrant with basil and garlic and Patrick accepts the wine with a distracted smile and swats at David with the towel he’s holding to urge him toward the living space.

Turning down the stove so dinner doesn’t burn, David brackets Patrick against the kitchen counter with his longer arms, forcing himself into Patrick’s space. David presses quiet kisses along Patrick's hairline, his temple, the shell of his ear, and the hinge of his jaw. Under David's touch, Patrick’s body relaxes but his conversation doesn’t, his voice tight and stilted. David is only catching the end, but from Patrick’s side of things, it doesn’t appear that there’s agreement between the parties. 

Finally off the phone, Patrick pounces on David, fingertips grazing his abdomen under the hem of his sweater, lips slow and deliberate but almost desperate. David makes a surprised sound into Patrick’s mouth and lets him maneuver them toward the couch, shins and elbows knocking into end tables and accessories along the way. “Stupid lamp,” Patrick mutters, and even sexually discombobulated, David still pulls up short.

“You didn’t have that lamp before.”

Patrick sucks in his bottom lip, brow furrowed. “No.”

“So where did you get it?” David asks, both accusatory and suspicious, a winning combination for relationship building.

“The lamp store?” Patrick says slowly, like he’s defusing a bomb. “What are you getting at, David? Why do you sound like I’m having some kind of torrid affair with home lighting decor?”

Because it’s new, David thinks, taking another look around the apartment. His eyes zoom in on Patrick’s typically bare desk. “There’s a cactus.” 

“Cactus store,” Patrick interjects quickly, as if David was about to ask where he bought it. “Yeah, I got a couple plants, actually. Get some oxygen moving in here.” He points to an additional sturdy-looking succulent on his new-to-David reclaimed tree stump end table and then over at a green plant with yellow-tinged leaves. The corners of his mouth are about to connect with his ears in one of his flag-raising smiles and Patrick’s eyes begin to dance. “I named the cactus David because he reminds me so much of you.” 

David ignores that in favor of a different type of indignation. He isn’t really sure why, though. Surprise plants aren’t traditionally grounds for conflict. Maybe he doesn’t want to have his own gesture rendered unnecessary by Patrick’s recent purchases.

“Well, I wish you would have told me you were going to the lamp and cactus stores, because then maybe I wouldn’t have gotten you this.” Luckily Patrick’s apartment is still the size of a postage stamp, so it only takes a couple of steps to reach the counter where he’d left the gift bag. His heart starts pressing against his chest then. “I may have stopped by the frame store.”

Patrick’s face goes incredibly tender and fond as he pulls the item out of the bag. David had been holding onto that sinfully delicious pie chart of trivia data for months and something about its order and its specificity made him think that Patrick needed it to ground him as much as David did. Patrick’s voice catches a little in this throat. “David, this is—”

David flaps his hand, a little bit to dismiss Patrick’s gratitude and a little to chase back an overly emotional response. He releases a shuddering breath anyway. “It’s nothing.”

“Yeah, no, this is not—thank you, David. I love it.” 

“Also, we’re going to need another one of those charts because it’s actually very useful and we can’t keep coming here and staring at your wall when we need it for reference.”

“No, of course not. I have it saved. I can print another one for everyday use.” Smiling, Patrick leans up on his toes, pressing his lips firmly to David’s. “This is very sweet, thank you.”

“I’m not sweet.”

“Well, it was a nice gesture.” Patrick looks at the frame, black and probably too corporate, but The Frame Store (which is actually the name of the store, no matter how badly David wishes it wasn’t) only had three versions in the size he needed and nothing truly matched Patrick’s aesthetic. Blank canvas isn’t an aesthetic, he reminds himself. “Thank you.”

A proud smile creeps its way onto David’s lips and catching sight of it, Patrick’s own face cracks wide open, like a shaft of light sneaking in through drawn curtains. They stand there for a few moments, Patrick with his head tilted, appraising, until finally he dives forward, catches David’s face in his hands and demonstrates the full depth of his appreciation.

They undress efficiently, an economy of motion and of words, like this is something they’ve practiced. In bed, Patrick is as warm and responsive as David imagines, his grip on David bruising but gentle. 

Patrick is making unintelligible sounds as David explores his throat, sucking what could become a bruise on his Adam’s apple, then ghosting down his skin to kiss along the knobby bone of his clavicle while he steadily works Patrick open. 

It’s hot and intense and easy to see how they might be able to do this forever, the relentless rhythm and Patrick’s legs hitched around David’s waist. 

David has been learning Patrick the same way that he’s been learning everything else lately; slowly but with great results. He knows better now what touches bring Patrick to the edge and what touches can bring Patrick over; he knows better now the shape of his feelings for Patrick and Patrick’s feelings for him. He understands each gasp and clench and trembling thigh and how to leverage them, how to earn them, how to savor them. David is learning to read the different hitches in Patrick’s breath as he hurtles toward orgasm the same way that he now reads smiles and touches and easy kisses. And he knows that Patrick is doing the same with him, the way his soft eyes study David when he thinks he isn't looking, or as he catches David’s jaw so he can watch as every new feeling David is experiencing slowly froths to the surface. It’s an ocean of feeling now; there are waves that crest and break and he can’t imagine now how he ever managed to hold back an ocean.

It’s funny how David spent so much time trying to withhold so many different, good, valuable, valid feelings from Patrick, when now they seem to be spilling out everywhere, over everything. He can’t seem to rein them back in now even if he tries. 

So he isn’t trying. 

“That book you were reading to me when I was sick…” David is sprawled lengthwise along Patrick’s mattress and Patrick is sprawled opposite, his head even with David’s feet. He can’t remember how they ended up here—some acrobatic feat that David’s back will likely live to regret—but Patrick’s legs are as strong as his forearms, and smooth under David’s exploring hands.

“The memory palace book?”

“Yeah.” 

“Can you tell me more about it now that I’m not hopped up on ‘ludes?” David skims Patrick’s shin with his thumb, marveling that Patrick has the barest amount of naturally occurring body hair on a human being that David has ever witnessed.

“Yes, sure,” Patrick says, distracted by the touch. He’s pretty blissed out and sex-dumb and taken apart and David likes it very much. Any chance he has to wrestle a bit of control from Patrick, he’s taking it. “You pick a place you know really well, like your apartment, and imagine a route through it that you normally take. Then you would pick something you want to remember, like the top ten Fortune 500 companies. You attach each item in order to a location in the apartment. So you’ve got Apple knocking at the front door, Exxon hanging on the hook where you leave your keys, and so on. It’s supposed to help you keep those things sorted in your memory later.”

“So if I wanted to remember, say, world capitals, I would connect each world capital to a path or route I’m already familiar with.” David skims the muscle of Patrick’s calf with just enough pressure and suggestion to cause goosebumps to rise in his wake. 

Patrick snorts a laugh. It shouldn’t be cute, but it’s cute. “I guess so, yeah.”

“So,” David lowers his mouth to Patrick’s ankle and sucks lightly on the knob of the bone. “If this ankle is Brussels, Belgium,” Patrick makes a satisfied noise above his head. “And then I board a lovely pastoral train and then maybe a boat of some kind,” David soothes it with his tongue before kissing a trail over the skin there. “Here lies Helsinki, Finland.” 

“Okay, yes.” Patrick struggles to become more vertical and fails, flopping bonelessly against his pillow. David traces a light pattern on the bottom of Patrick’s foot and his toes curl in response. He gives a breathy half-moan and something in David stirs again, even after everything that has just taken place. “Ngggh.” 

David laughs. “He likes Finland, who knew? Maybe we should stay in the Nordic region for now.”

David assigns the capitals of Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Greenland out loud along each one of Patrick’s toes. Patrick is absently tracing shapes on David’s hipbone with his thumb until he lifts his head to interrupt. “Okay, I very much condone what you’re doing here but can we at least go alphabetically? Or east to west? This is very chaotic.”

“I shall build my memory palace however I choose,” David says loftily. “But I will say that at this rate, we are running out of separate body parts to assign and visualize, so we might need to map more efficiently.” 

Patrick does sit up then, stretching so that he can rearrange and align himself with David, chest to chest. “I think you’re right,” he says, budging closer to David, fingers walking tantalizingly slowly along the curve of his shoulder. “We should be more scientific about this; take it bit by bit. Save our air miles.” Patrick lowers his lips to the island outcropping of small freckles on David’s scapula. David writhes a little under his attention. “I think I found Kuala Lumpur here in Malaysia.”

He catches Patrick’s hand, pulling gently on his arm to reveal the round, coffee-colored birthmark he just traced earlier with his tongue. “Ooh, nice. Jakarta.”

“Yes, Indonesia is beautiful this time of year,” Patrick holds up his wrist, the silvery light cross-hatched scar fading more each time David sees it. “Where’s this?”

David’s mind whirls a little, a combination of too many endorphins and not enough oxygen and newly unbound emotion. If it wasn’t for that arm not doing what Patrick wanted it to do, he wouldn’t be here, in Schitt’s Creek. Definitely not in this room. David licks along the vein. “What’s your favorite place in the world? Doesn’t have to be a capital, even.”

“Well, that’s against the spirit of the concept, don’t you think?” Off David’s look, Patrick stops. “Why?”

David is still holding Patrick’s arm to his lips. “Because this wrist brought me one of my favorite people in the world, so. I think it should be celebrated.”

“In that case,” Patrick starts and David is suddenly very frightened of how much sincerity is about to be flung in his direction. He wants it but he still doesn’t quite know what to do with it, is the thing. There isn’t enough room in his chest these days for the things he’s already feeling. Patrick’s face softens the way it does right before he’s about to tell a secret. “It’s right here, with you. This bed. On the north wall of my apartment, if you need, you know, a point of reference.”

“The bed will suffice,” David says as he smiles into a kiss and Patrick responds in kind. 

“I wonder where we’ll locate Bangkok?” 

"I have one _very_ good idea but I'm open to suggestions."

David is suddenly terribly concerned that doing this will later cause Pavlovian responses in a roomful of sad, sweaty Paradigm contestants, but that is Future David’s and Future Patrick’s problem. 

Now he wants to explore every inch of Patrick’s body, every centimeter of pale, bare skin, every follicle and every pore, and claim it. Know it. Memorize it. He wants to blaze a trail of kisses that start on the top of Patrick’s world and follow it to the bottom and he wants to be able to follow that trail by rote. By heart.

He wants to learn and remember and know Patrick by heart.

* * *

It’s still dark, the sun not yet risen, when a pounding on Patrick’s door wakes them both.

“Did you order pizza?” Patrick asks blearily, his hair matted down on one side, aloft to great heights on the other. He still looks positively edible and David likes him so very much.

“It’s 7:00 a.m. Of course I didn’t.” After kissing the confusion from Patrick’s lips, David surreptitiously consults his phone, because it wouldn’t be the first time he’s ordered food in his sleep. Okay, no. No sleep-ordering. “Tell them to go away. We don’t need to be saved and we don’t want any Girl Scout cookies.” David flops backward onto his pillow, throwing an elbow over his eye. “Actually, if it’s the cookies, I would like one box of each.”

Patrick rolls over and snuggles into the crook of David’s arm, rubbing his forehead against David’s exposed bicep. “It’s not the Girl Scouts. They’ll go away.”

The knocking continues, persistent. “Patrick? Are you in there?” 

Patrick sits up and David almost rolls off the bed.

“Rachel?” Patrick starts to extract himself from their tangle of sheets then, his voice slightly panicked. “What are you doing here?”


	8. Chapter 8

Patrick flies out of bed as Rachel calls out again. “Can you please open the door, Patrick?” 

“Patrick?” That comes from a deeper voice, one clearly not belonging to Rachel.

“Dad?!” 

“Patrick!” 

“Okay, we’ve established that everyone knows your name,” David says, a little peeved as the sheet pools at his waist. “What is going on?”

David startles when instead of answering his question, Patrick calls out: “I’ll be there in a second!”

As a rule, David does not operate optimally at any time before 10 a.m. and certainly not after having a marathon of sexual congress the night before. But his boyfriend is already out of bed, pulling on yesterday’s jeans and cursing under his breath as he hops around the apartment, hiding bottles of lube and throwing discarded towels and washcloths into the laundry hamper, almost taking out several fledgling succulents in the process.

“Rachel must have told them where I am. And even though I talked to my parents _just_ last night,” Patrick grits out, pulling on a sock even though he is still bare-chested, “they didn’t mention they were taking any road trips.”

“So would you say this wake up call is also a surprise party?”

Patrick snorts. “Yeah. Kind of.”

David scoots over as Patrick sits down on the edge of the bed to lace up his shoes, shirtless, as if being barefoot is somehow the most controversial thing his parents might notice. David leans his head against Patrick’s bicep like a cat asking to be pet, even as Patrick concentrates on his task. “Should I...what do you want me to do?”

It seems like the right thing to ask, as if the answer could conceivably be _shimmy down the drainpipe, would ya?_ David doesn’t know. Anything is possible. It’s just that there is so little time for discussion and Patrick looks caught somewhere between chagrined and terrified. Maybe he’s just tense; it’s hard to tell much of anything in the pale light that trickles in through Patrick’s window.

Patrick moves further into David’s space, warmth radiating off his bare skin. David is still naked in his bed, too; this should have been a very different morning. “Hey. Hi. I think you might want to get dressed unless you want my Mom to see, you know, stuff.”

There’s a crushing sense of relief then; not just for the promise of pants but because Patrick is close and he still seems reachable, even though David doesn’t entirely recognize what’s happening behind his eyes. “I would think she’d be impressed, but okay, fine. You win.”

“Yeah, I think I already won,” Patrick says softly as he presses a kiss to David’s forehead, his face doing something terribly fond and tender.

It’s enough to ratchet David’s heart rate as he gives the studio one last look. He doesn’t see anything glaring that indicates that...David doesn’t know what they’d be hiding exactly. 

Following Patrick’s lead, David dresses as quickly as he can in last night’s clothes, skipping his underwear and praying that his too-tight jeans don’t betray him in front of Patrick’s parents and his oldest friend in the world. His teeth will have to go unbrushed. He smooths his own bedhead down by touch and sheer force of will. These are not the conditions he would have chosen to meet Patrick’s family, but these are the conditions that he has been dealt.

With yesterday’s sweater finally yanked forcibly over his head, Patrick opens the door to reveal three people: one petite redhead, a middle-aged woman with familiar brown eyes, and a taller, handsome man with graying hair. Everyone is smiling and by the time David gets a good look at any of them, they’re already inside.

“What are you guys doing here?” Patrick asks, scrubbing a beleaguered hand through his hair as he steps out of the entryway. David wants to pat down the cowlick he just raised, but thinks better of it since Patrick is already grumpy and on edge. “Was there no cell reception on the entire eight hour drive?”

“We wanted to surprise you, sweetheart.” Mrs. Brewer has the kind of face that makes David want to confess all kinds of secrets to her and he can see why Patrick has to maintain his distance in order not to crack. She takes hold of Patrick’s left arm the second she’s within reach, as if she’s checking him for further damage. Patrick only grudgingly allows it. “It’s just that we have some wonderful news.”

“Yes, our carrier pigeon is in the shop and your mother insisted we drive here to tell you in person.” Mr. Brewer follows his wife into the room. Like his son, Patrick’s father takes up more space than his physical size would suggest. “See, Marcy, he doesn’t have scurvy. He’s fine.”

"You thought I might have scurvy?"

“Look how long your hair is, Patrick, goodness,” his mom says, ignoring the question with another hug and maternal once-over. Patrick squirms a little under her attention and David can see a version of a six-year-old Patrick in the way his bottom lip juts out. “What a quaint little town you have here, but the sign—is that some kind of joke?”

“Seemed more like a warning to me, Marcy,” his dad says, examining the recently-gifted trivia chart where it lays on the kitchen counter. “This is fascinating artwork. I don’t think I understand the more contemporary pieces.”

It’s hard for Patrick to get a word in edgewise because Rachel bustles in after the Brewers, wrapped in a thick sweater and a fluffy plaid scarf, throwing herself into Patrick’s arms. He has to take a few steps backward with the force of it, but eventually his hands come up to return the hug. David can’t entirely see Patrick’s face but he can see how his shoulders unhitch and how Patrick sags a bit in relief as Rachel’s arms wind around his ribcage. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, but she’s loud enough that David can hear her. “They were just so excited and I tried to—you know what they’re like when they’re excited.”

“Oh, I do.” Patrick nods into her shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll talk later and you can apologize repeatedly then.” 

“I asked your mom to make extra Nanaimo bars. Isn’t that apology enough?” Rachel is still wound halfway around Patrick when she notices David, lurking in the shadows. “And you definitely owe David some, since he somehow managed to beat us in the door.”

After back and forth about the length of the drive and _wow I wasn’t expecting you_ and finally, a blushing _this is my boyfriend, David,_ it becomes apparent to David that his presence is a surprise. While it’s not an unwelcome one, and even though he’s accustomed to being a secret, disappointment catches against his ribcage like a burr.

Everyone takes a turn hugging him, even though they don’t know him, and tells him to call them by their first names, while Patrick stands off to the side, biting his lip and looking at the ground as his family completely fills the small living area.

“I’d ask you to show us around but,” Patrick’s dad gestures openly to the room as if to indicate that he could touch the walls from where he stands. Patrick responds with a polite, though hollow, laugh.

“Oh no, it’s super cute, Patrick. Bigger than our old bus, for sure, but a little more sparsely decorated,” Rachel offers as she stands over by the mantel, near the Touched by Grapes wine bottle that Patrick has apparently recently turned into a candle holder. 

“His decorating has actually improved leaps and bounds from his former serial killer's lair aesthetic,” David defends while nudging Patrick, who is making a tremendously valiant attempt to blend in with the fireplace. “Is that the bottle of wine from the night of our first date?”

“You mean the night we watched a movie and not everyone knew we were on a date?” For the first time since his family entered the premises, Patrick sounds like his normal, confident self. 

“I knew it was a date!” David says too loudly for the space and the amount of people in it. Patrick blushes and leans up to accept David’s kiss on his stubbled cheek. “Sorry, it’s just that you were very vague about the terms and conditions at the time.”

He swears he hears Rachel mumble, “Sounds about right,” but when he looks to her for confirmation, she smiles and shrugs. It's becoming increasingly evident that Rachel and Patrick both seem to purvey friendly snark in equal measure.

Meanwhile Marcy Brewer is across the apartment, opening and closing kitchen cabinets; she investigates the refrigerator contents and does not appear satisfied with anything she’s encountering, if the series of _tsk_ s and _oh no_ s are any indication.

“You know what, let’s go out for breakfast. David, do you want to come with us?” She hasn’t even taken off her coat. “We would love to get to know you better.”

David is starving and he wants to go but the reply doesn’t feel like it should be automatic. He looks to Patrick, who is unshaven and unshowered and despite his earlier momentary rally, still looks like he’s in the presence of three ghosts. His hand automatically migrates to Patrick’s shoulder, kneading gently at the back of his arm as if to reanimate him. “What if Patrick and I meet all of you at the café? In an hour? I think...I think their eggs are much better once they’ve had time to get the grill...warmed up.” 

“No one wants eggs from a cold grill,” Mr. Brewer agrees. So, wanting to be useful, David draws the Brewers careful directions to the café. He details a scenic route that includes as much of Schitt’s Creek as will fill an hour without detouring them straight into Amish country and then everyone exchanges yet another round of hugs, allowing the newcomers to depart. David hasn’t witnessed a group this huggy since Alexis almost joined that yoga cult.

As the door closes behind them, David is lightheaded from holding his breath. “Okay. Tell me what’s happening.”

Patrick blinks up at him, still not entirely himself. “I don’t know, David. I have the same information you do right now,” he answers, scratching at his scalp and meandering bewilderedly toward the bathroom. 

David halts him with a careful hand to the arm and presses a small kiss to Patrick’s lips, quick and calming. “Okay, so we’ll figure it out.” He likes Patrick, he likes so many things about him, but Patrick’s ability to be spontaneous isn’t at the top of the list. He’s a planner and it’s very apparent that everything about his family being in town is completely outside of the bounds of Patrick’s planning. 

“Yes we will and I’m sorry I’m all in my head,” Patrick responds as he sways into David’s arms, allowing him to pet at his neck and shoulders and head. A small purple bite mark already sits at the base of Patrick’s throat (Kiev, the Ukraine), just inside the v-neck of his sweater. David may have matching fingerprints on his hips, bruises that Patrick put there last night as he whispered _beautiful, beautiful_ against David’s skin. David misses the simplicity of the night before and Patrick grasps him tighter as if he can hear David’s thought, but just for a moment.

“Your parents and Rachel seem very nice,” David says by way of distracting him. Except David is getting more and more distracted by the available line of Patrick’s throat.

“They’re lovely, sure, but funny thing—I don’t actually want to talk about them right now,” Patrick mumbles into the collar of David’s sweater as he finds his own means of diverting focus by licking a teasing stripe at the base of David's neck. “Wanna get in the shower with me? We have an hour.”

With one swift motion, Patrick has his sweater off and daylight reveals a patchwork of other marks that David left behind in their shared endeavor to properly map Patrick’s body. From the looks of things, he had quite the manifest destiny approach to exploration. David knows that he’s never going to look at another map again in quite the same way. It’s getting harder and harder to look at Patrick and not see his whole world.

“Should we talk first though? Your parents…” David breathes out, running his hands lightly down Patrick’s bare shoulders and down to his pecs to his nipple, where he lightly squeezes, and Patrick lets out a little whine and mouths at the sensitive skin behind David's ear. Talking can wait. Everything else can wait. “No, nope, let’s get in the shower,” David decides quickly.

Patrick’s shower is barely large enough for one person but David joins him anyway because he’s willing to make certain sacrifices if it means that Patrick is wet and naked and pressed up against him. Patrick’s shower ledge is lined with Gel Time shampoo and conditioner and body wash and he’s tempted to turn right back around when he sees the paltry selection. But Patrick always smells good and Patrick-y and anyway, even Ocean Breeze body wash from Brebner’s is better than _eau de your son’s come._

They make out a bit before half-heartedly attempting to wash the results of last night’s adventure in colonialism off of each other’s bodies. It’s more about pleasure than cleanliness and they’re both slippery with soapy lather, skin sliding against skin, when David slips down to his knees, water sluicing into his eyes. 

Patrick’s distracted fingertips dig into his shoulders like he’s trying to get him to stand back up. David doesn’t think he could if he tried. “Hey, it’s okay. That’s not—”

“I want to,” David protests. He does want to. All the time. He loves that he always wants to be touching Patrick, the way he’s drawn to his shoulders and his back and how Patrick always leans into the touch. But David is only human, and he is also drawn to other parts of him, and Patrick is hard and thick and beautiful and David wants him in ways he’s still figuring out words for sometimes. “Do you want me to suck you?”

Patrick nods, long and serious. His eyelashes clump together in the hot spray of water and his hair is flat against his head and little droplets of water drip from the tip of his nose. He’s perfect; the affection in David’s chest stretches so wide it feels like he could wrap himself in it. “Always, yeah.” 

It probably isn’t blanket permission that David will carry forth into all future sex acts, but he accepts it for this one and takes Patrick into his mouth. 

Above his head, Patrick digs his fingers into David’s shoulders, toes curling against the aged porcelain of the tub as David slowly swallows him down. He’s making needy little sounds that reverberate off the ceramic tile in between recitations of David’s name, over and over like a benediction, like a blessing.

Patrick’s thighs twitch under David’s hands as he bucks his hips, fingers clinging tight to David’s hair. Patrick comes fast and hard and loud, legs trembling, all things that make David feel like he’s doing something impossibly right, and then Patrick is on his knees in front of David, kissing his face and his shoulders and the hollow of his throat.

They’re getting better at understanding what the other needs now. He can read Patricks’ tells better and better—in the crinkle of his too-light brow or the flick of his downturned lips or in the careful way he turns his head and watches David. They’re developing a shorthand, maybe, born from frequent communication at the trivia table, born of being mindful of one another. It isn’t something that David knows well, the idea of having someone want to be mindful of him. 

David sighs and focuses on Patrick then, on the water beaded on the tips of his lashes as he gazes at David, on his hot and hungry kisses and his sliding, slippery, wonderful hands; he focuses on accepting what Patrick wants to give him. He hopes that he can say things to Patrick without words, too; tell him that he’s safe and wanted and that David hears him and sees him and that he wants him, just the way he is.

Patrick must have heard him because he returns the favor, jacking David through a languorously slow handjob that builds so much pleasure and heat David can barely breathe his way through it. After David comes, thrusting into Patrick’s hand with some rather undignified whimpering, Patrick sucks at his bottom lip and licks deeper into his mouth, kissing him breathless once again. “You did so good, baby, you’re so good.”

He’s jelly-legged and sated as Patrick gently pats him down with one of his utilitarian blue towels and David makes a mental note to find a way to get something with a higher thread count in here for the days that he stays over. He has no desire to exfoliate with his linens. 

Somehow Patrick locates a sweater of David’s that he’d accidentally left there and loans him a pair of boxer briefs and they’re dressed and out the door in plenty of time to meet Rachel and the Brewers for a still too-early breakfast in town. David doesn’t love that his hair is almost product-less (Patrick did have something labelled ‘Pomade’ in his medicine cabinet that might have been military grade and perhaps David would have had more success with his tub of Vaseline) but Patrick’s face has shifted back to ‘neutral terror’ and David would do anything to make that expression dissipate. Including comically disastrous hair, he finds. 

He pats Patrick’s hand on the gearshift, turns up the volume and sings along vociferously with Whitney Houston, who wants to dance with somebody who loves her. He’s too familiar with those feelings: the lonely nights and wanting love that burns hot enough to last, and it isn’t anything he ever really considered he might be able to have. _Maybe now,_ he thinks, and he sings louder.

“You know that Stevie gave me a shovel-talk last week, right?” Patrick says over one of David and Whitney’s more high-pitched _woo-hoo_ s. 

David stops woo-hooing and turns down the radio, heart in his throat. “Excuse me?”

“Well, not in so many words, but she asked about my dental records and said that if I hurt you, someone should know where those were kept. No actual shovel was mentioned but I got the gist.” He rubs absently at his jaw. “I’m not...I have no plans to hurt you, just so you know.”

David looks out the window and then back toward Patrick. David knows that Patrick doesn’t plan on hurting him, the same way David doesn’t plan on hurting Patrick. But David also knows it’s not always something you plan. After all, Patrick who plans everything, never planned on David.

“Okay,” David says, leaving it at that and turning the radio back up. 

“Okay,” Patrick repeats as he begins to sing along to “Graceland,” and David watches him as he sings, the squared off way he holds his shoulders and half-closes his eyes, even though he’s driving. He looks peaceful. Young and peaceful and happy—David wants to start clutching at the threads of this moment, gathering them and knitting them together so he can keep them. 

David leans over to kiss Patrick at the last stoplight before the restaurant. 

“Thank you.” Patrick leans into the kiss, breathing a little heavier and closing his eyes again. This may be the least in control David has ever seen him. David needs to draw his own deep breath as Patrick brings his hand up to David’s jaw, holding his face. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell them who you are to me before today. I should have told them more.”

Either hilariously or fortuitously, in all the meet-the-parents anxiety, David has almost forgotten that the Brewers had been surprised to see him, that they didn’t seem to have all the information up front. It’s fine. Worse things have happened. He makes lists like this in his head all the time, ways to feel less vulnerable. _What you don’t know won’t hurt you_ is probably first on the list. “It’s okay. They know now, right?”

“Oh they do.” Patrick nods as he parks the car. “So we’re good?”

“We’re good.” David confirms, cupping Patrick’s neck to pull him in for one last kiss before they go inside. 

Rachel and the Brewers are already seated in a booth, so David and Patrick stuff themselves onto the same side as Rachel, who has already ordered Patrick his tea, and it makes David wonder at what relationship milestone he’ll start ordering things for Patrick before he’s even sat down. (Is four months the Beverage Pre-Ordering anniversary?) That’s when Twyla stops by and Patrick orders David’s caramel macchiato, complete with sugars and cocoa powder, bumping his shoulder conspiratorially. David feels like he should get something for Rachel in this weird transitive property ordering triangle (a plate of french toast sticks for the table, maybe), but instead he just nods and smiles benignly, inching his way closer to Patrick. He feels like a pod person. He would never make it in the suburbs.

Mrs. Brewer looks around on the side of the booth she’s sharing with her husband, as if she’s misplaced something, which leads to a rather charming Abbott and Costello routine between Patrick’s parents about a missing digital camera that must still be out in the car.

“Are we taking pictures?” Patrick’s voice goes a little high. “I’m sorry, is this 2003? Don’t we have phones?”

“They always do this,” Rachel tells David. She’s been a friendly guide to all things Brewer, as if David is on a sight-seeing adventure. “They had to convert a room in their basement just for photo albums. If you need a photo of Patrick wearing a cowboy hat unironically at the Grand Canyon for any reason, Marcy can probably dig one up for you.”

Patrick turns toward David, only slightly mortified. “I never did that, though, before you start making faces. It was always under the pretense of extreme irony. Very high level satire. Also I was twelve.”

Mrs. Brewer smiles at both of them, blithely ignoring Patrick’s protests. “When you come visit us, we’ll show you everything.”

“Even the pantsless years,” Mr. Brewer interjects helpfully. Patrick is scowling but there’s something playful underneath it, like they’ve been through this particular back and forth a thousand times. It’s well-worn, loving territory. “Tee-ball games, camping trips, every birthday party with the cousins. Somehow, the kid always managed to lose his pants.”

“My god, this is fantastic. And this is all recorded on film?” 

“Well, on Kodak paper, but yes.” Mrs. Brewer starts scrolling through her own phone over Patrick’s grumbling. “I have a few family pictures in an album here, but I think he’s fully dressed in all of these.”

“Disappointing, but I’ll allow it.” David accepts the phone to peruse the albums, while Patrick and Rachel peer over his shoulder at the pictures as he scrolls through them. Patrick’s breath is warm on his neck as David moves through smiling picture after smiling picture; various ages, various stages, but the warmth and the togetherness and the appearance of familial closeness never varies. 

“You know,” David stops on a photo of the Brewers and Rachel in more formal clothing, maybe at a family wedding. The Brewers are seated and Patrick and Rachel are behind them; Patrick’s tie is loosened and his shoulders are relaxed. David can’t stop looking at Patrick’s smile, the width and the breadth of it. “The last family portrait I can remember of us is this oil painting we used to have hanging in our great hall. My sister was off somewhere so my dad’s assistant sat in for her and now it’s…” 

Patrick squeezes the top of David’s arm as he hears the rising emotion in David’s voice. “Hey, was that the one where your Mom’s eyes would follow you?”

“Yes, she had to pay extra for that,” David says. He’s not surprised how quickly Patrick knew to veer away from the subject, but he’s grateful for it.

“Well, I think we should take a new family portrait then,” Mr. Brewer announces, slapping the table decisively. His coffee sloshes a bit. “It’s not every day we meet Patrick’s boyfriend. But Patrick, let’s please keep your pants on.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Yes please, Patrick,” David repeats, barely able to keep his mouth from sliding to the side in a poorly suppressed smile.

“Oh my god,” Patrick groans. 

Both of the Brewers excuse themselves so that Clint can run back out to the car and Marcy can use the restroom to touch up her makeup, leaving the rest of them alone momentarily. His parents are both barely out of earshot when Patrick turns to Rachel, irritated. “Come on, Rach, you could’ve given us just a little a heads up.”

She doesn’t seem all that bothered by the return of Patrick’s prickly mood. “I did. I left you a voicemail and I texted you the keysmash code three times last night.”

“Oh.” Patrick blushes down past his Adam’s apple and David bites his bottom lip to keep from laughing. “We were, uh…”

“Yeah, I could tell,” she references the red mark on Patrick’s neck. “You have kind of a mouth-shaped sunburn there.”

“So you can see why I wasn’t paying attention to my phone,” Patrick absently touches the raised bump, but he recovers quickly. “But seriously, what’s going on that we can’t just FaceTime about it?”

“I think your Mom wants to be the one to tell you,” Rachel says vaguely, as the elder Brewers converge on their table. “But it’s all good. Don’t worry, okay?”

Patrick doesn’t look like he believes her, but he doesn’t have time to argue as his parents enlist Twyla as photographer and begin instructing everyone on where the lighting is best. Then it’s a series of _can David move in closer to Patrick_ ? and _Rachel, if you just scoot a little to the left; Patrick is someone pinching you? For heaven’s sake, we paid for braces; let’s see your teeth._ and _Aw, I love this one with your hand on his shoulder, David._ In the end, Twyla snaps about twelve different photos, all to varying degrees of success.

“You look good,” Mrs. Brewer tells Patrick as they settle back in the booth. Marcy. She’s already said to call her Marcy. David knows he’ll never work up the nerve to call her that. “Healthy.”

Patrick takes David’s hand under the table. 

“I am healthy. I never wasn’t healthy,” he argues, more to David than to his parents. It sounds like this is also a conversation Patrick has had more than once, if he’s already calling in reinforcements.

“You had surgery, honey,” his mom reminds him. It’s not a reprimand; it’s just gentle. Every time Mrs. Brewer speaks, it’s like drizzling rain against a windowpane, constant and soothing. That must be how you raise someone like Patrick; you’re just steady. “The last time you were home, you asked me to cut the crusts off your pancakes.”

“I was coming out of anaesthesia.” He looks at David, very serious. “And obviously, pancakes don’t have crusts.”

“Yes, well, neither do your sandwiches.” Rachel teases and David knows it’s true because he’s seen Patrick eat a turkey club. “It’s not meant to besmirch your character.”

“Besmirch away, if that’s all you got.” Patrick is smiling now, first at his parents and then at Rachel, turning away from David. He’s glad Patrick is smiling now, after all the initial unease of the morning. 

The Brewers ask David about trivia and his family and living in New York. Mrs. Brewer wants to see pictures of the dance at the Senior Center because Patrick told them all about it the last time they’d talked. (“The cranes are beautiful, honey,” his mom comments. “They’re very nice, Patrick, but this is one instance I’m particularly relieved that you outgrew the whole no-pants act.” “Okay, that wasn’t funny the first five times you made that joke.” “Well David is laughing,” his dad points out. “David is just being _polite._ ”) 

There is a tiny voice in the back of David’s head that wonders how Patrick has told them all of this but still didn’t mention until this morning that he and David were dating. He dismisses it, though, because he’s already said he doesn’t have a problem with it. On his list of ships that have set sail, David doesn’t particularly feel a need to wave that one back to shore.

Patrick then steers the table into conversation about David’s work at the Art House and when David details his frustrations with Vic, Mr. Brewer offers to mail him a book he just read on the changing theater marketplace. 

Mrs. Brewer reaches across the table to pat his hand.

“Well, once you and Patrick win the Paradigm, I bet that you’ll find yourself with a slew of good options, David.” 

It makes David feel good, thinking about having options again, thinking about how it’s so rare that someone attempts to encourage him, given most encounters he has with his own family. He can’t imagine what it might be like to have parents who ask you questions and know precisely when you had the chickenpox and offer helpful suggestions; suggestions that don’t involve three different diatribes about Clifton Sparks or being told your choices are disappointing. It’s terribly evident from meeting the Brewers that Patrick didn’t have to teach himself to tie his own shoes because _Mummy can’t drag Proenza Schouler through detritus, David._

The Brewers are quick-witted and warm, just like Patrick, and Rachel is funny and smart, and it’s clear that she knows a side of Patrick that David feels like he’s starting to know too. Except that David is finding little ways he’s behind, the bits of shared history that he can’t possibly know because he wasn’t there, and it’s getting harder to see how to catch up. 

They’re finally eating their pancakes and eggs and Patrick steals bacon from David’s plate and a sausage link from Rachel. David’s stomach starts to roil as everyone is laughing at a story that Clint is telling, something about Patrick taking a clipboard to Kindergarten because Rachel wanted him to play House and he thought if he brought in props, she’d be more likely to come around to his idea of playing Office. 

“You slept with that clipboard every night for a year,” his mom says, laughing between sips of her orange juice. Even Mrs. Brewer’s laugh is steady. “We had to bribe you with a ream of carbon paper to get you to give it up.”

“Nothing makes fake invoices more authentic than carbon paper,” Patrick points out. David can picture Patrick at any age, playing office, drawing up accounts, little blue smudges on his cheeks from the ink. 

David looks down at his fingers clutched tightly in Patrick’s hand and he pulls them back, just enough to weave their fingers together, pressing his palm against Patrick’s dry one.

Patrick squeezes. His fingers are thick and blunt and they make mundane things beautiful. David loves his hands, loves the things that they can do, but now that he’s been confronted with Patrick’s real life, he is also beginning to understand that there is more out there for Patrick’s hands than trivia and paper frogs and David’s body. 

Over her wheat toast, Marcy tells David about how Patrick, her straight-A student, came to her after high school graduation and told her that he didn’t want to go to college. He wanted to take his band out on the road and see if he could make a career in music instead. 

“He made a PowerPoint, convincing us how much more money he’d make as a musician against the four years of tuition we’d pay for university. He was so determined that he needed to do this, we couldn’t tell him no.”

“I don’t know how many times Marcy told me it was all my fault for encouraging Patrick to practice piano,” Clint tells David.

“You bought a mumblety dollar upright piano for our eight month old because he hit the keys of your mother’s and you thought he was some kind of prodigy.”

“He was a prodigy!”

“I’m just grateful Little Mozart expressed no interest whatsoever in the drums so it left me something to play,” Rachel interjects. “I don’t think I could have dealt with the tambourine.”

“Oh, come on, you could have played the trumpet or the tuba,” Patrick says lightly. It’s easy to see how Patrick and Rachel spent so much time together, how they dated for all those years. They’re comfortable together; they have a worn in groove between them. She challenges him and Patrick practically thrives on being challenged.

“The trumpet and the tuba, yes, wonderful additions to any folk rock band. Much sexier than the accordion, for sure.” Rachel pokes Patrick in the arm hard enough that he ricochets off of David a little. 

“Excuse me, the accordion is a very sexy instrument. And it brings back good memories of Budapest.” Patrick doesn’t expand on those memories, because Rachel must already know them. He isn’t holding David’s hand anymore, but instead it’s balanced on David’s thigh as if he is anchoring himself, to keep from being swept away by the tides of his eager, loving family.

David can’t get over how much of Patrick he can see in his father’s mannerisms, in the set of his jaw and his shoulders, the way he moves his head when he talks. He can barely get over what it looks like to have attentive parents who pick you up for breakfast at the crack of dawn just because they’re excited to see you. He’s surrounded by all this love and positive regard and he can see it all reflected in Patrick.

Clint leans forward, his chin dropped as his mood seems to shift from jovial, teasing father to someone who has all the answers. “I think this is a good time to tell you our news, Patrick,” he says with the same kind of self-assured energy that his son possesses when he’s six points sure.

“Our news?” David can feel Patrick stiffen, almost imperceptibly, and David presses closer to him in the booth until Patrick’s shoulder hits David squarely in the upper arm. 

“The specialist, the one that you found last year, she finally has an opening. David, they told us it would be years, but she just called. She thinks you’d be a great candidate for the new protocol she’s developing.” His mom starts bringing copies of something out of her purse and pushes them across the table. 

They’re brochures and printouts and oh god, it looks like spreadsheets are hereditary. It might also be some sort of schedule. Patrick’s shoulders tighten and his eyes flick over at David, just briefly. “Yeah. Wow. That’s....I don’t—I don’t—this is all a lot to process.”

“Patrick. This is what we’ve been waiting for,” Rachel says and it sounds so accurate, so very true, that David feels it against his solar plexus as swift as a punch. 

“Sure,” Patrick says softly and maybe with a bit of uncertainty. It sounds uncertain, anyway, unless that’s just how David is choosing to hear it. It’s hard to tell over the seismic shift in the atmosphere. “It’s just—David and I haven’t talked about what this would mean for us yet, exactly, and—”

No, they’ve never talked about what it would be like when Patrick’s wrist and arm were healed; Patrick hasn’t really been treating it as a possibility. Or maybe he has been this whole time and he was worried how David would react, knowing he’s always had one foot out the door. 

Patrick’s hand on David’s thigh floats up to the table top. 

There’s something in David’s chest that he can’t quite breathe around and Rachel and the Brewers are radiating such intense pride and hope, saying things like, “We just want you to be happy, Patrick.” They’re talking about the record label and when he might start back on tour and success rates of whatever the fuck “the protocol” is and David can’t hear anything other than _he’s leaving he’s leaving he’s leaving_.

David knows he needs to go before they notice that he is silently and completely freaking out, so he hopes he excuses himself when he gets up from the table. 

He stumbles into the mid-morning sunlight and it’s far too bright and far too clear. He’s blinking against it when he feels something, someone warm at his back.

“David?” It’s Patrick. Of course it’s Patrick. 

“I’m okay. Just...I needed...I’m feeling kind of ill. I don’t think the grill was warmed up enough for the eggs.”

Patrick looks confused until he registers that David is making a poor excuse based on this morning’s poor excuse, back when they were just surprised about a visit. Patrick’s voice is as gentle as the hand on the small of David's back. “C’mon. Let me take you home.”

“No, I can…” David trails off. He can’t do much of anything right now. He needs to start walking, so he starts to walk. He can hear as Patrick follows.

“Hey, where are you going?” Patrick calls, his shorter legs needing to work twice as hard to keep up with David’s longer ones. 

“I don’t know. Not...not here.” He doesn’t know where he’s supposed to go now; he’s spiraling. Patrick should know he has no sense of direction when he’s spiraling. He just walks faster, as if he can put enough distance between the café and himself then the morning might restart, or maybe he’ll just walk right off the edge of the earth, because it’s definitely flat.

Everything is flat.

But David loses his breath by Yarn for Cheap and he’s panting with his hands on his knees when Patrick catches up to him. Patrick isn’t even winded.

“What are we doing?” Patrick asks. He doesn’t sound angry, which, why would he? David just made him sprint through the town square for reasons unclear, but Patrick enjoys cardiovascular workouts. 

“We’re not doing anything,” David’s chest is still heaving. There’s roaring in his ears, like he’s being pulled underwater and it’s already covering his head. 

“It seems like, it kind of seems like we are doing something?” Patrick has his hands on his hips now. His breath is even. His voice is less so. “I didn’t know you could run like that; you got out of there fast. I didn’t even...I barely even got a chance to tell them no.”

“Was that what you were going to say though? It didn’t seem like a no.” Even though he’s hurt, the problem isn’t that Patrick may have wanted to say _yes._ Honestly, if that's what Patrick wants, David is realizing, then David wants it for him. It isn't often that David finds himself in the position to give someone something that they want. Maybe he just needs to make it easier for Patrick to accept the offer by getting out of his way. 

“Okay. Let’s go somewhere and talk then,” Patrick starts to reach for David’s hand. David can’t figure out why Patrick keeps trying to take him to a second location to talk; why isn’t this spot on the sidewalk good enough for whatever he has to say? “I want to talk.”

“Yes, you wanted to talk so much that you’ve never once mentioned an alternative treatment before today. Before finding out that you could actually get it.”

“That’s—David, that’s not fair.” Patrick stops when he reads David’s expression. “It was such a far off thing, such a miniscule chance—”

“Your parents really seem to think it has promise.” 

“They think everything has promise. Didn’t you hear the prodigy story?” He throws up his hands, exasperated. “Just...this is a choice I’d like to make, for myself. I mean, with your help, obviously. I can’t—nothing is coming out right, okay? Just please, help me decide what to do.”

“I think you should do it,” David blurts. He can’t stop thinking of the thousand dangling paper cranes and the thousand other origami creatures lined up in Patrick’s room and on trivia tables, tangible proof of how hard Patrick is working to regain a semblance of what he had. David thinks loving Patrick might be his own version of origami: something beautiful to come out of something difficult. Maybe loving him means allowing Patrick to reclaim his past. From everything David has seen today, it certainly seems like a nice, full life.

“Wow,” Patrick looks a little bit gobsmacked, which David honestly hadn’t really expected. He also looks sort of sick now, paler than normal. Maybe it’s just the light. “That was—so, what, we’d do long distance then? Or no, you should come with me, if you wanted, if you thought—”

David shakes his head. “No, I’ve tried that. That won’t work.”

“Then I don’t understand.” 

“I just think that if it were me, and my old life came knocking, that I wouldn’t be able to close the door.” He doesn’t tell Patrick that he would probably not only close the door but slam it shut. That isn’t what Patrick needs to hear right now. “You should go with them and get the treatment. I wouldn’t be angry if you did. It makes sense.” He looks down at the concrete beneath his shoes, because he’s almost certain that he’s starting to tear up. “Maybe more sense than anything else.”

Patrick finally speaks again after what feels like a year of silence. “David, I don’t really know what’s happening right now, but I don’t like what I’m hearing. I mean, I can see that you want me to go and normally I like to give you what you want, but not if it means that we—”

“Okay, but who is _we_? You didn’t even tell them we were dating.” _Oh._ That bit of hurt certainly snuck its way back in without much warning. 

Stricken, Patrick swallows. “No. That’s not—It isn’t you. Would you run and tell your family the minute you met someone? I just, I haven’t been telling them anything, barely anything, David. That isn’t a reflection on the way I feel about you.”

“But you know how it feels, right? It feels like you just gave everyone the bits and pieces of information that were convenient for you.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. It does look—I know how it looks. But that isn’t because of you. It’s more because I don’t know if I even want to go back to the way things were. I don’t know if I want that life.”

“So you’re saying that all that origami and all that therapy you’ve been doing is so you can be fulfilled as the sixth man on a championship bar trivia team? Are you planning on taking Dot and Joan to Aca-Nationals next year too?”

“Wow. Huh. That’s...okay, I get it. You’re angry. I understand that; I would be too. Let’s just take a minute, finish breakfast, and then we can talk about this later. When we’ve both cooled down, we can weigh out our options a little better.” 

David is angry, maybe, but he also knows that if Patrick has any chance at all at a return to normalcy he should take it. That he shouldn’t allow David to hold him back. “Just, please tell your parents I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that and they seem like very nice people who would not leave a social situation without saying goodbye.”

“Wait, that’s it? You’re just going to go?”

David looks to the right, then left, anywhere but the immutable sense of loss in Patrick’s eyes. Like a piece of the puzzle just fell into place for him. Like there’s even the smallest possibility Patrick thinks the road ahead is long and winding and forged together. David finds himself taking a stumbling step backward. “It’s just, I know how this ends.” 

“Ends?” It takes a few seconds to land. Patrick stops advancing, and allows David to widen the space. “How?” 

“It’s going to end. Everything does, eventually.”

“Not in my experience.” His entire compact body set and determined, Patrick isn’t moving, his hands deep in his pockets. “But I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”

Throat tight, chest overfull, it’s too hard to look at Patrick, with his eyes screaming hurt and panic. David looks out into the street instead, where people are still walking and driving and keeping their lives whole and intact. 

“It’s just...it’s been _my_ experience that it is nearly impossible to forget about what you used to have. Even if you were hurt before, even if you were disappointed, when something gets taken away, there’s always something inside you that wants to get it back.”

“Yeah, I can definitely understand that. It’s just...nobody ever gets everything they want.” Patrick edges his way closer again. He points in the vicinity of David’s heart, an area David has recently been lax in protecting, his voice taut as if he’s holding back his own tears. “But I want you. In my life. That’s what I want.”

It isn’t easy to argue with the look in Patrick’s eyes, like David really is...wanted, maybe even loved. He doesn’t know if he’s ever going to find this again. “Yes, well,” David swallows against the boulder in his throat. “I also can’t be the reason you regret not trying. It’s not in you, not to fight. Because you, you’re competitive. You always want to fight, to win. I know you do.”

“But this doesn’t feel like I’m winning, David. It feels more like you’re breaking up with me. Are you breaking up with me?”

He hadn’t woken up this morning believing that this is how his day would go; he wasn’t even on track for this twenty minutes ago, but it seems to be where he is now. Patrick is stubborn and Patrick is good and Patrick sometimes needs a push in the right direction when he’s hesitant. David doesn’t want it, but it feels like what Patrick needs. “Yeah, I think I am.”

“Wait. Just wait.” Patrick is blinking rapidly but David can still see the tenacity building in the clench of his jaw, rising like mercury in a thermometer. This is so much of why David likes Patrick; he just doesn’t give up. But it’s also why David knows he has to say whatever it takes to convince him to walk away. “So you’re saying that you would give all of this up, me included, even if there was a ten percent, no, a five percent chance that you could get your old life back?”

 _Whatever it takes._ Fuck. David takes a deep breath, straightens his spine, and lies. “Yes. Yes, I would.”

In the end, it is Patrick who walks away first, and David who stands on the sidewalk, willing himself not to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I have to give extra love to Distractivate for the six thousand times she read this chapter and helped me make it better every time. 
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me through this story and for all your thoughtful comments. They definitely keep me going! 
> 
> The next chapter should be posted by the end of the week.


	9. Chapter 9

“David, I don’t know if this is what they mean by if you love someone, set them free.” 

It’s been no more than fifteen minutes since David watched Patrick’s back as it retreated down the street, but somehow Stevie has already found him, still cemented to the front steps of Yarn for Cheap. 

Stevie is sitting next to him, rubbing his back as each of the breaths he attempts to gulp down gets caught between his chest and his throat. He’s already told her everything in a jumbled, horrifyingly honest, awful stream, from the wake-up call to his own awakening, and she’s being gentle with him. Stevie is never gentle. 

“Okay. So, where do we go from here?” Stevie turns her head to watch a car as it slows down somewhat, the driver probably someone they know. David feels even more exposed.

“I’d like to go home now. Will you please take me home?”

So Stevie drives him back to their apartment and tucks him into bed and doesn’t tell him what an idiot he is, which may be the kindest thing she’s ever done for him, aside from being his friend in the first place.

He tries to tell himself that this is just like all the times that he drove passports and colored contact lenses to consulates for Alexis; it was scary and exhausting and a little bit heartbreaking, but in the end, she was safe. What mattered was that she was safe. And what matters here is that Patrick has everything that he needs, even if it is scary and exhausting and absolutely fucking heartbreaking.

Except then he doesn’t sleep for three days and he can barely force down food and if this is what being selfless is, he doesn’t want any of that.

After the fourth sleepless night, Stevie brings the laptop into his bed and they binge every true crime documentary they can stream. He falls asleep in Stevie’s arms somewhere in the middle of _The Staircase_ and dreams fitfully about owls. He somehow manages to wake up missing Patrick even more.

On the fifth, while Stevie is at work, he unearths his cellphone that Stevie had hidden and starts listening to all of the Button Down albums he downloaded when he and Patrick first started dating. Maybe it starts out as a masochistic attempt to feel closer to Patrick but it seems to be having the exact opposite effect. The voice coming through his headphones is unmistakably Patrick’s: clear and rich and butter-smooth. David loves Patrick’s voice when he sings, when he speaks, when he wheeze-laughs, when he mumbles gibberish in David’s ear as they fuck. The problem is that David can’t hear Patrick anywhere in the songs, in the melodies, in the lyrics. The music itself feels...closed off, inaccessible. As if there’s a layer of distance between the artist and the song. It doesn’t sound anything like the Patrick David knows. Or maybe he doesn’t know Patrick the way he thinks he does. Either way, while he isn't under Stevie's watchful eye, he listens to everything he can feasibly track down; bootlegs and live albums and Apple Music sessions and through all of it, he can’t seem to find Patrick anywhere.

On the sixth day, David takes his first shower, having neglected far more than just his nine-step-twice-daily skincare regime. He’s halfway through his body milk application when he remembers the last shower he took, at Patrick’s, and has to sit down on the floor of the bathtub because his knees don’t work anymore. 

He takes to his bed again then, almost relieved that they’d spent so much time at Patrick’s apartment, so that his own apartment would be that much less haunted. But then he remembers how Patrick painstakingly cleaned this room while David had the chicken pox, how the sheets he’s laying on were tucked into the corners of the mattress by Patrick’s hands, and then he flees to the couch.

That’s when Stevie starts limiting him to fifteen minute crying jags thrice daily and confiscates the bottles of wine, and that is how David knows for certain that he may have made the right choice for Patrick, but he’s made the entirely wrong one for himself.

* * *

[6:03 p.m. David I need your help.]

When David skims the text on the banner of his phone screen, his heart immediately arabesques into his throat until he sees who the text is actually from: his mother.

After a series of incorrectly used emojis and three different blank text messages, David finally learns that his mom is trying to work up a number for the town’s upcoming Asbestos Fest. Originally, she wanted to run choreography and costumes by him, but somehow over the course of the conversation it morphs into dinner at the cafe with his entire family. (To be fair, it was most likely the use of three salt shaker emojis that his mother erroneously believed were “the physical embodiment of asbestos containment,” that ultimately pushed them to schedule the meal.)

David doesn’t want to go to the cafe for plenty of valid reasons: the possibility of salmonella, Twyla’s questionable smoothies, the ghosts of trivia games past. Not to mention his recent devastating heartbreak. But he goes because moving forward with normal things isn’t wallowing, and he wants to stop wallowing.

He’s barely five minutes into the meal before he realizes what a catastrophic mistake he’s made, not only allowing his parents and sister front row seats to his latest vulnerability, but being in the cafe at all.

At his side, Alexis completes a complicated series of sympathetic pawing gestures against David’s upper arm. He knows he’s teetering on the razor’s edge of an unwanted nose boop so he angles his face as far away from his sister as possible. “David. You’re such a brave little toaster, coming in here like your heart isn’t broken.”

“My heart isn’t broken,” David lies. Because his heart has actually been obliterated, made into dust particles, swept up in a bin. He feels like he’s going to throw up. The booth he sat in with Patrick and the Brewers is right in front of theirs. He can still see the Brewers’ faces, smiling warmly, teasing Patrick. He can still feel Patrick’s hand moored on his thigh, until it wasn’t. David shifts on the bench seat and stares down at his silverware until the urge to cry and/or claw out his own eyes passes. He may be here awhile. 

“It’s just, you look—” Alexis flutters her eyelashes, pouts her bottom lip, and elaborately pantomimes wiping away tears.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m fine,” he tries to argue, but it emerges through his narrowing throat in a jumble.

At this, his father leans forward and settles both hands flat on the table. It’s something he does when he’s feeling particularly paternal, fixing David with what has to be a well-meaning gaze. Instead, it’s mostly uncomfortable. “Well son, separating from someone that you had...romantic feelings toward, that can be difficult. But I think what is important here is that you get back up on that horse, find another pasture to graze in.”

“Graze? Oh my god. Ew, Dad, no.” Alexis and David blanche simultaneously.

“Oh, John, please. As if you’re any expert on romantic entanglements. No clydesdale should be remounted until David is able to recognize the ways in which he and his beau diverged on their path to togetherness. He must learn from this experience.” His mother draws the last word into three.

“Oh, I have learned from this experience.” David replies, gut curdling. “I have learned that I do not want to talk about it or think about it or address it, in any way. If you have constructive feedback, please write it on a comment card and fling it into the sun.” 

“All right then.” His father smooths at the napkin on his lap and almost looks relieved to be forced to change the subject, though Alexis gives David a rather sharp elbow as she relents. “Well, I was down at Bob’s today and heard that Vic is finally going to be selling the Art House. Went on the market today. Maybe you can turn this into an opportunity for a complete fresh start. Really wipe that old slate clean.”

“Oh my god. I should have seen this coming.” Perfect, now he can add being unemployed to his recent life changes. Although between Ray coming in to take photos and Vic constantly micromanaging the ordering and the paper products, it should have been obvious. How many other things that were right under his nose has he been missing? “What else is going on?”

His vague question is the only opportunity his father needs to launch into a fifteen minute monologue about Roland versus the rain gutters, a fight David would pay not to see or hear anymore about, and then his mom wants to talk about the new play she wants to direct, and by the time Twyla brings his entree, he’s almost crawling out of his own skin. 

The rest of dinner passes as a typical one with his family: his father blusters in a tone-deaf attempt to be helpful; Alexis wants to be reassuring but lands more on frightening; while recounting a story about filming _Miranda’s Rights,_ his mother stabs and re-stabs the same blueberry with such force that it makes David sympathetic to the plight of Violet Beauregard.

He’s waiting for Twyla to box his pie to go when he notices a familiar looking succulent by the register. “Hey, did you get that at the cactus store?”

“Oh, do you mean Flowerpots?” Twyla asks, equal parts sunny and confused by the question. He can’t blame her. He’s confused about why he’s asking it.

“ _F_ _lowerpots_?” David would still like a stern word with every soul who names a business in this town. “Okay fine. Did you get your cactus at Flowerpots?”

She shrugs noncommittally. “No, but I don’t know where Patrick got it. He brought it in yesterday and said it was looking for a good home.”

It had a good home, David thinks ruefully, until he went and ruined everything. And wasn’t Patrick already gone? “Wait. Yesterday? When did you last see him?”

“He was here this morning for his tea. I’m not sure if he said he was leaving today or tomorrow, though, because Roland started choking on his BLT and—” She may still be speaking but David doesn’t hear it, because his brain has already shifted into scorched earth mode. 

Chest compressing, David has to hold onto the counter to keep from doubling over. _You told him to go; you aren’t allowed to be surprised when he leaves._

David’s heart races, along with his mind, and then suddenly his feet. Before he knows it, he’s out in the street again, pointed in the direction of Patrick’s apartment.

He just needs to tell Patrick he didn’t mean a word of what he said about giving him up. He wouldn’t take his old life back, ever, not the relationships or the Norwegian music festivals or the scads of money, because it was all empty; his old life had been a facade. This life, the one with trivia and Stevie and a boyfriend who pushes him to want to be a more comfortable version of himself, this is the real one, the one he can’t give up. He shouldn’t have given up on Patrick. Patrick, who was real, who is real, who follows through on promises and looks David in the eye and kisses him like it’s the first time, every time. 

He’s kissed a thousand people but David has never had someone kiss him the way that Patrick does; he’s never had anything like this before. Which may explain why he didn’t know what to do when he had it. And while being with Patrick may be the life he wants, that still doesn’t mean David is the best life for Patrick. At the very least, David wants to leave things on better terms; maybe that is the clean slate he’s looking for. 

If his feet will move fast enough, maybe he can get there in time to say good-bye, wish him well, tell Patrick that he’s valued and cared for and David is happy for him to get a chance at something he loves again. He should have every chance, if it’s what he wants, if it’s what he needs. He should have told Patrick he was happy for him—that would have been selfless. That would have been putting Patrick first, instead of telling cruel lies to push him away. David has done this all wrong. 

He isn’t a gambler by any means but David understands odds and David still doesn’t want to take Patrick’s chances away from him. He can hear Patrick as he gloated over guacamole about JUNO awards and his parents calling him a prodigy and David knows how unfair this all is to Patrick. That his choices have already been taken. 

This is one choice he should have been allowed to make for himself.

Maybe David can give him the choice again. Lay out his options. Maybe he can still ask Patrick to stay, even if he has to beg, just a little. They can figure out a way to get what they both need; they can each start to be a little more selfish. 

David is crossing the street when he feels something sharp against his hand and realizes he’s holding the succulent Patrick had left behind.

He isn’t sure if it’s an offering or an olive branch or just a souvenir at this point; it’s the only real thing he has left of Patrick besides more regret than he can carry. 

David climbs the steps to Patrick’s third floor apartment. His back is covered in a fine sheen of sweat and his breath is ragged and all the words he has planned to say slip and slide in his head. They’re all there, waiting to be caught; hopefully he’ll catch them when he sees Patrick.

Drawing on all his inner strength, David starts to raise his fist to rap urgently against the plywood, doing his best to shake off any niggling feeling that this may not actually work.

There’s movement behind him in the hallway and he whirls around, hoping to see Patrick. Instead, it’s Ray.

“Ah, hello, David!” Ray is carrying a huge set of keys and a _For Rent_ sign _._ David has to brace himself against the doorframe. “I was just coming to set up the apartment for a showing. Might you be interested?”

David shakes his head, numb. The cactus presses into his stomach where he’s clutching it and he barely notices that it is snagging his McQueen. “Is he—he’s gone?”

“He dropped off his keys this morning.” Ray readjusts all that he’s holding, so he can indicate which ones belonged to Patrick. “Were you coming to pick something up?” He gestures to the plant. “Did you also have a key to Patrick’s apartment?”

David shakes his head. “No. No, I think I need to go now. Th—thank you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, David. Is there something I can do for you?” Ray says it the way you talk to a person who seems to be dangling right on the edge of a precipice, as if he’s correctly reading the wild, out of control look in David’s eye and seeing potential for danger. David feels dangerous now. _Patrick is gone._

“No.” David says quickly, well, not that quickly, but loudly. It’s too loud for the hallway and Ray actually takes a step back. “I need to go.”

This time his feet take him to the LCBO and he buys bottles of god-knows-what, putting the left-behind plant down by the register as he takes money out of his pocket to pay. The person behind the counter barely flinches, because apparently it’s BYOC (Bring Your Own Cactus) or maybe they can just tell David is barely hanging on and it’s best not to pry. 

That night, he shame-watches _Back to the Future_ , gets sloppy drunk on second-rate versions of polar bear shots, and cries so hard he makes himself throw up. It’s Stevie who cleans him up and makes sure he’s laying on his side as she tucks him into bed, even as tears still stream and sting the crease of his eye. 

When he wakes, he can feel every ounce of the previous evening in each dehydrated cell of his body and his chest still aches like it’s been bulldozed, but he knows what he has to do.

He needs to get to the Paradigm so he has the money to go find Patrick and win him back.

* * *

“So you’re _sure_ that Gwen is coming?” David asks Stevie for at least the sixteenth time that day. It’s been a week since he discovered Patrick’s empty apartment and started caring for a semi-abandoned succulent (even though Tropical is in their name, the cafe is no place for a cactus) and while he’s allowed himself small pockets of wallowing time, he’s spent most of it studying for the Paradigm. Well, studying and trying to distract himself from the reality of having broken his own heart. It’s almost working, having something else to concentrate on. He understands now why people throw themselves into crafts and hobbies so willingly; he has barely had time to think outside of his appointed tasks. 

Thanks to work schedules, Ted and George are driving up to the Paradigm separately on the day of the actual contest, so Tennessee, Stevie, Gwen and David will be the only ones forced to endure the six-hour trek out of town stuffed into Stevie’s fast food wrapper-strewn vehicle. 

Except when David brings his bags down to the parking lot, it is only Stevie and Tennessee standing next to her car. “Gwen knows what time we’re leaving, right?”

Stevie glances at Tennessee and David can feel his blood pressure rising already. It’s too early in the day for this and they aren’t even in the car. It’s as if the team-building exercises had been for naught. “About Gwen…” Stevie begins and David feels his stomach drop out. He knows how that sentence ends, and it’s never good. “She’s having another one of her male cousins visit but we, uh, found someone to take her place on short notice.”

That’s when David notices a familiar face sitting statue-still in the back passenger seat. “Oh my god, you didn’t.”

“Actually, Gwen did. But he said yes and was here early, so. It can’t be that bad.”

David doesn’t know if he should cry in gratitude or collapse onto the asphalt but he’s desperately relieved to see Patrick, even in profile. He just wishes he could decide if it’s excitement or fear clawing at his throat. “So what am I supposed to do now?”

Stevie gives him a look, like he just asked how to breathe. “Get in the car.”

Even from outside the window, it’s apparent that Patrick is resolutely watching the back of the seat in front of him as if it is a thrilling action sequence he cannot look away from. David glances back up at Stevie. “Can I...can we have a few minutes before everyone else piles into the vehicle please?”

He’s prepared himself for this moment poorly, because now that he’s faced with the reality of an in-the-flesh Patrick, David is completely at a loss. Stevie’s right, though; he should probably just get in the car.

“Hi,” David says as he attempts to fold himself gracefully into the backseat. There are empty cola cups on the floorboards and David ruffles them mightily as he seats himself, cardboard crunching under his Thom Browne boots. Patrick, looking overwhelmingly touchable in a cozy looking hoodie David has never seen before, barely raises his eyes to look at David.

“Hey.” 

“I have your cactus,” David blurts out, causing Patrick’s brow to jump in a mixture of confusion and surprise. 

“I—I’m sorry? Is that code?”

Fuck. This is going super well. “Yes, it’s code for I don’t know what I’m doing. And also that I literally have your plant in my possession. Well, Alexis does while we’re out of town, but I—I thought that the cafe was far too moist a climate for a succulent to thrive.”

He can’t tell what crosses Patrick’s face then. “Oh. I see.” It’s clear that Patrick isn’t going to be giving him a lot to work with today. Which is fine. Expected really, or probably even deserved. “Thanks?”

“I can’t believe you’re here.” Nothing is coming out right.

Patrick’s jaw twitches enough to transmit that he’s not comfortable. David is making him uncomfortable. “Listen, David,” he starts, voice loaded with far too much politeness for someone who has every right to be angry. “I wanted to come. I felt like I’d be letting the team down if I didn’t and we all worked so hard to get here.”

“Hmm.” David hums as he bites his bottom lip. “I’m sorry that things...I should have—you didn’t deserve—” He takes a breath and centers himself as Patrick waits, his face passive. “I should have talked to you. I just...all I wanted was for you to get what you needed and in the process, I ended up taking all your choices away. And then I hurt you. So, really, you have every right to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, David,” Patrick says quickly, fully looking at David for the first time, and David is flooded with an automatic sense of relief. “I just...I think it’s best if we just focus on the Paradigm. Not let...not get distracted.”

“So you just want to focus on the Paradigm then?” David can’t promise not getting distracted. He is already very, very distracted and he doesn’t want to give Patrick any more reasons to be disappointed in him. Or whatever he is. It’s too hard to say since Patrick has stopped making eye contact. “I can do that. If that’s what you want.”

“Yeah, I think that would be best.” Patrick studies his hands for a moment, presenting David with a prime opportunity to openly gape at him. God, he’s missed that face. “But it’s good...it’s good to see you.”

“Oh. Yes. It is good. To see you. You look—” Patrick looks miserable and exhausted and David is searching for a word that is more complimentary than _clobbered_ , “—comfy.”

“Thanks, it’s my lucky hoodie from my old hockey league. We went 12-2 in this thing.” Nothing cheers Patrick like old sportsball memories. “And David,” Patrick’s mouth flirts with, maybe not smiling, but with lessening the intensity of its frown. “I don’t know when you’re going to stop pinning your hopes on Gwen. When are you ever gonna learn?”

David is about to volley back a response about the inverse proportionality of Gwen’s lack of reliability when Stevie raps loudly on the window. “Hey, we need to get this show on the road!”

Patrick gives David a familiar sideways look and it almost feels warm. Like it’s coming from the Patrick of a few weeks ago. The one David’s been searching through albums and interviews and bootleg concert footage to find. But then Stevie is in the driver’s seat and she’s playing the stereo at an eardrum-splitting volume, blasting _We Belong Together._ Glancing over at Patrick as Stevie and Tennessee sing along at the top of their lungs, it is clear to David whatever ease that may have just passed between them is gone.

Patrick is hunkered down as far into the corner of the backseat as he can, earbuds in and a pile of flashcards clutched in his hand. The physical separation is glaring proof that he’s not interested in further discussion, so instead, David watches Patrick as furtively as he can. He sorts through the cards and closes his eyes, mouthing each answer to himself before he moves onto the next. It’s meditative in a way, the rhythm of Patrick’s movements, the easy flick of his wrist and the soft sounds of the cards as he shifts each reviewed one into the back of the deck. 

Midway through the ride, Patrick reaches into his backpack and pulls out several additional piles of rubber-banded flashcards along with a color-coded index of categories. It spurs a bit of hope, somehow; Patrick spent his time working on something that ultimately benefits both of them, working on something that they grew into together. Maybe that means something. David would like for it to mean something, anyway.

“Can I look at those?” David shouts over _Reunited_ (because Stevie is a menace), pointing to the pile of Anatomy flashcards, and startling Patrick enough that he almost drops the stack he’s holding. 

Patrick recovers though and carefully withdraws one earbud, pale eyebrows drawn together. “These?”

It’s the first word he’s said outside of their earlier conversation, and David never thought he’d be relieved to hear a monosyllabic response to a question.

“Yes, thanks,” David says as Patrick offers the cards to him, his fingers brushing David’s wrist. Inside David’s chest, something twists at the unexpected contact. “I should get caught up.”

Patrick doesn’t respond other than to nod a bit blankly and turn back to his own studying. David spends the rest of the ride staring out the window, clutching the cards unread in his hand.

* * *

David has to ask the check-in clerk at the hotel to repeat themselves thrice when they announce that David and Patrick have been booked into the Honeymoon Suite. Stevie and Tennessee miraculously fade into thin air as David questions how that might be possible. Patrick gravitates slowly toward the elevator with their luggage, probably too embarrassed to be associated with the scene.

A quick survey of their shared room reveals that the pillows in the Honeymoon Suite are embroidered with a filigreed “In Love” and resting one’s head on them provides a birdseye view of the hot tub. David tests the windows, but they don’t open far enough for him to fling himself out of one. 

David waves a despairing hand in the general direction of absolutely everything. There are _balloons_. “Well, this is—”

“—triggering.” Patrick finishes for him.

“Hmm, I was going to say traumatizing.”

There’s obviously an elephant in the room and it's clear from the strained silence that the animal appears to be looming near their only sleeping space.

“Hey listen, don't worry about it. I’ll sleep on the floor,” Patrick announces, finally, sounding almost resigned. He’s still examining their surroundings, clearly unsure what he should be more mortified by, and once again looking anywhere but at David. “You can have the bed.”

David takes another horrified look at the pillowcases of warning and the towels that some blackhearted hotel staffer has nefariously shaped into supposedly romantic kissing swans. He's still standing under the helium-filled harbingers of a lifetime of imaginary wedded bliss and now his stomach hurts. “No, that’s okay. Your arm...you should have the bed.”

Patrick’s face darkens at that. “My arm is fine.”

David knows he needs to be mature here. He thinks of announcing it, _I’m trying to be mature,_ but swearing to it like he’s testifying in a court of law probably lessens the sentiment by half. David looks at the bed, then to the awkwardly-located tub, and the four foot long bench that sits under the window. None of Patrick’s current options are ideal and a grumpier, uncomfortable Patrick isn’t exactly something David is salivating to have to deal with—not to mention, they’re trying to win fifty thousand dollars tomorrow and at some point, he’d like to be back in Patrick’s good graces. It’s eighty-seven percent about the team, David reminds himself, thirteen percent that you’ve made an enormous mistake.

This should be easier, somehow, to navigate. They liked each other, once. David still likes Patrick and even if Patrick is tentative and standoffish now, maybe he won’t always be. Granted, David doesn’t want to sleep in a heart-shaped tub full of nope, either. “Okay, then. I’ll take the bed.”

Tossing his duffel onto the bench under the window, Patrick mumbles, “Great. Glad that’s sorted.”

It doesn’t feel particularly sorted; everything feels very stunted and unsaid, despite their earlier inroads, and David feels like he needs to fill the air with something that isn’t tension. He can’t though, because Patrick is behind the bathroom door in a flash, then showered and changed and gone before David can say much at all.

With Patrick already probably exploring the more social aspects of the Paradigm festivities, David finds Stevie and Tennessee in their room getting high and drunk. While he’d love to participate, something tells him a hangover won’t benefit his future trivia-contest-winning plans.

“I hope you’re aware that forcing temporary habitation between exes is a crime. You’re a criminal,” David announces in what he hopes is a threatening, malevolent manner to the smoke-filled room. “You can’t just orchestrate betrayals and then disappear like David Copperfield.”

“The Dickens novel protagonist?” Oh good, Stevie gets more well-read when she smokes. “David. Would it make you feel better if I told you that we got you that room for no extra charge?”

“I’m sorry, why would that make me feel better? You should have had to pay double for this kind of fuckery, if I’m being honest.”

“Listen.” Stevie sounds authoritative as she sits up, flannel shirt completely askew. “You have two choices here. One,” she holds up a finger, “You two need to get over yourselves and make up, or, you two need to get over yourselves and make up.”

“There are no choices there,” David points out helplessly. 

“Yes. I know. You have no choice.” She collapses onto the bed and half onto Tennessee. Clearly, David is not going to get the answers he’s seeking here.

He makes the mistake of dressing and going down to the dining room, where he’s immediately accosted by the wait-staff and shuttled to an out of the way booth where a blazer-clad disgruntled-looking Patrick is already seated.

“What is happening? Is this an assault?” David asks the hostess, who is practically manhandling him onto the loveseat behind the table and directly into Patrick’s lap. “I didn’t—we didn’t—I would like to be seated at the bar.”

“Not on your honeymoon, silly! We had an eight o’clock reservation for the Rose-Brewer party and you’re late!”

“I’m going to kill Stevie,” David growls at the cutlery. Patrick looks fit to bolt. “Hey, you’re scrappy and you left our room an hour ago. How could they possibly have caught you?”

“I put my name in for a table and that’s when she found our ‘reservation.’” Patrick makes angry little air quotes with his fingers and when he drops them, he rubs at his wrist. “She has deceptively strong hands.”

“Okay, if there are closed circuit security cameras, I will pay them to find that footage,” David scans their immediate surroundings and tries to ignore the _Just Married_ tiaras at the place setting in favor of something less heartrending. “We’re sitting under a lighted chuppah, aren’t we? That’s not just an architectural feature of the dining room?”

Patrick glances up warily. “Seems to be.” 

There are also several sets of eyes on them, David notices, and then realizes that the tinkling sound he hears isn’t just his brain melting; it’s people clinking their glasses to signify wanting the couple to kiss, like they’re at a wedding reception. In Hades.

“They all have access to dinner forks, Patrick,” David hisses through clenched teeth and a pasted on smile. 

“As in, they will stab us with their dinner forks if we don’t somehow fulfill their strange voyeuristic kissing needs?”

“Yes. I don’t know. Maybe. Some kind of...pricking could take place.” There are far too many creepy smiles being thrown their way. David hazards a glance at Patrick, who is sitting with his arms folded now, glaring a little at the onlookers. He looks like a five year old who doesn't want to eat his peas. “You know, I don’t think it helps that you’re wearing that jacket.”

“They want to watch us kiss because I’m wearing my blazer? Okay, I see, that’s the trigger here. What if the restaurant had a dinner jacket policy? Would the whole place just be a mass orgy?”

David chokes back a laugh that might also be a snort. “Obviously not. But they’re still staring, Patrick. It’s like bad performance art. Or anytime I would dine with the Hiltons."

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Patrick start to lean, and maybe it’s just that he’s trying to get more comfortable in a situation that isn’t at all comfortable. But then Patrick’s thumb brushes his cheekbone as his hand angles David’s jaw, and Patrick is...kissing him. The kiss is butter-soft and just slow enough to blaze a series of sparks along all of David’s nerve endings. It feels incendiary and right and he wants so much more of it but Patrick is already pulling back.

“Okay.” Patrick says and it’s more husky than Patrick normally sounds. “We gave the people what they wanted. No one shall be pricked on our watch. Are you happy now?”

He wouldn’t say _happy_ since David is feeling very, very forked indeed. He isn’t sure what just happened or what his face might be doing or how he should proceed. 

He has to work up the nerve just to look at Patrick, who is suddenly an incongruous mix of glowering and bashful. “I shouldn’t have...I’m sorry, David. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that.”

“Regrets?” He tries to put a lilt in his voice that doesn’t betray how much that hurts, or how much he wants more than that, or how maybe this should be his cue to address all the unsaid things between them. 

Patrick squints as if he’s weighing the same options, his jaw twitching. “Nah, just...I don’t want to make things any more confusing.”

“Yeah. That’s...hmm.” David wishes there were flashcards for this part of the Paradigm, the part where he needs to find a way to convince Patrick he’s still worth having. Worth kissing. Worth loving. “Things still feel...equally confusing.”

“Okay, good. I mean, not good that things are still confusing. But we've established the ground rules then.” Patrick toys with his spoon. David notices that he is conspicuously avoiding the fork. It probably has nothing to do with anything. 

“We have?”

“We won’t be peer-pressured into any more public displays of affection, for one.”

“Are they our peers, would you say?” David picks up his menu. “I mean, I guess these strangers are no worse than our actual peers, who apparently arranged this whole Honeymoon Suite nightmare without our permission.”

“Oh. That’s...that’s…” David hasn’t seen Patrick seething mad since Dr. Miguel stood at their table taunting Ted over incorrectly answering a question about rabbit dewlaps and Patrick snapped at Dr. Miguel to “say it walking,” which was also really fucking hot. This is equally hot, but also hurtful. “That’s low, even for Stevie.”

“Well, what she lacks in height, she makes up for in treachery.” 

“She can’t just...manipulate us like that. You can’t play with people. This is—” Patrick’s mouth turns down. “This is our real lives.” Patrick doesn’t speak again right away, but a thousand different microexpressions flit across his face before he drains the remains of his bottle of beer. “You know what? I think I’m just going to go back upstairs and eat in the room. I think I saw a minibar somewhere up there underneath the fourteen pieces of luggage you brought.”

“Excuse you. I brought one garment bag and a duffle. I’m sorry my clothing needs to breathe.” Knits cannot be suffocated, which Patrick knows because he has been repeatedly informed of the fact during David’s weekly knit-care debriefings. “Anyway, you can't eat peanuts and Toblerone for dinner.” 

“Well, I don’t plan on eating the Lover’s Curry, either. This description sounds eerily close to when George attempted goulash and I think that we both can agree a reenactment of that would be less than ideal.” A ghost of a smile lifts over Patrick’s face right before he wrinkles his nose in disgust. “I still taste it at the back of my throat sometimes. It was like...pennies and burps?”

“Hmm.” Unpleasant is really too kind of a description; Patrick had been thoroughly miserable that evening. “It was very difficult to sleep next to you after that.”

Patrick tips his head, finally looking more at David than the tabletop. “I blame George.”

“Rightfully so.” The rush of affection and familiarity that courses through David then is almost paralyzing and he has to swallow against the lump in his throat. He ends up turning back to his menu, just to allow some of the pressure building in his chest to dwindle. “Then we should order something that is _not_ the Lover’s Curry.”

“Fair enough.” Patrick agrees, picking up his menu as well. David doesn’t know what it means that Patrick hasn’t left the table like he said he would; David doesn’t know what made him change his mind, but he hopes they can keep this momentum. “I’m thinking steak.”

“I haven’t had a good steak since we went to the Elmdale Inn—” David pauses, realizing that he’s talking about things they’ve done together in the past like it’s natural. Like nothing has changed. It feels easy, though, easier than what they’ve been doing.

“Oh my god, that was amazing. Melt in my mouth.” Patrick makes a satisfied little noise. “I actually took my parents there last week on our way—” He stops himself, a dark cloud passing over his face. “They were really sorry to have surprised you like that. To have surprised me. There was talk of sending you an apology lasagna.”

“I would not have minded homemade lasagna, but that’s not—they don’t owe me an apology. I shouldn’t have left it that way. I was....overwhelmed.”

“Yeah,” Patrick puffs a sigh.“They can be overwhelming.”

“No, it wasn’t them; they were very nice. And Rachel...she’s lovely. But I don’t know why I thought she’d be taller, somehow.” 

“Oh, she has a big presence, for sure. I just wish it would have been a more planned visit, you know?” 

Rachel always looms very large in David’s head. She’s this person who occupies so much space in Patrick’s past, in his life, who loves Patrick and is there for Patrick like Stevie is for David. They’re both lucky to have that. Luckier maybe that they’d found each other, but David has managed to undo that in one fell swoop. He can now add Efficiency in Relationship Disassembly to his CV, making weaknesses into strengths as often as possible.

“Yes, well. I could do better at adapting, maybe.”

The silence is almost comfortable, so David decides to push further because what he lacks in self-control, he makes up for in blind panic.

“So, when is your appointment scheduled?” David tries to sound casual but knows it’s impossible. This must be what it feels like to go fishing, to cast out a line and not know what will bite. 

“What appointment?” Patrick asks, befuddled. 

“With the specialist?”

The line of Patrick’s mouth hardens almost imperceptibly. David knows why Joan can always beat Patrick at poker; his face just gave away the game. “I’m not going to have an appointment.”

“What?” A new pulse of anger rips through David, bright and quick. “What are you waiting for? You need to call them.”

Patrick gives a tight little hum. “I don’t know if I want that right now. But I wanted to get through this weekend and see where things…” He looks hurt and small and David wants to reach for him, but he knows it will only cause more confusion in the long run, so he refrains. “It doesn’t matter what I thought, I guess.” Patrick stands up, pushing past David. “Enjoy your steak. There are some terribly overpriced peanuts waiting for me upstairs.”

As Patrick exits, the server finally returns, carrying a tray with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. She looks curiously around the table, noting Patrick’s absence. “Should I wait to pour until your husband comes back?”

David all but collapses onto the tabletop, head in his hands as he instructs the server to leave the bottle, but keep the glasses.

* * *

“Honey, I’m home,” David mumble-slurs as his keycard clicks _green_ in the door handle of the Honeymoon Suite. He definitely drank enough champagne to give himself a buzz and what is surely the start of a pounding headache, although it didn’t do much for the chasm in his chest. All he wants is a lingering shower under a hot spray and to curl up in the fetal position under some hotel-grade linens. He’ll just have to get used to having Patrick within arms reach but still untouchable.

The television is on and tuned into something sportsy; there’s running and tall men and shorts. When David enters, Patrick flicks the set off with the remote and almost leaps off the bed. “Sorry, I was just finishing the Raptors game.”

“There were absolutely no dinosaurs on that field.”

“It’s a basketball court. They stopped letting dinosaurs into the league back in 1978.” Patrick quips while maintaining direct eye contact. David has no idea what he’s talking about. Patrick is already in his pajamas and in another universe, David would be wrapping his arms around Patrick and nuzzling into his neck, skin warm against his own. “They’re winning. I think that’s a good sign for us, for tomorrow.”

David wishes Patrick wouldn’t have added the qualifier. He could use a few good signs right now. Although the eye contact is a start. 

“You don’t need to turn off your match on my account. I still need to shower and moisturize and—” _think about what I’ve done._ “—you know. Everything.”

“So I’ll see you in forty-three minutes?”

“How do you know that’s how long it takes me? Do you keep a stopwatch on it?”

“David, you take an entire episode of _Ozark_ to do much of anything. But yes. Do you want me to keep one now?”

“Absolutely.” David says as he collects his toiletries and disappears into the bathroom.

He luxuriates in the high-pressure shower with several cycles of _lather, rinse, repeat_ and adds about seventeen extra steps to his nine-step skin-care regimen. By the time he emerges, there is zero hot water and he’s moisturized himself within an inch of his creamy, supple life. 

“How’d I do?” David asks as he emerges from the steam of the small room.

“Well, after the hour and fifteen mark I figured you were sandbagging so I stopped the official count, though I do appreciate your desire to prove me wrong. And I know you don’t care, but the Raptors did win, in overtime, so it felt like a very parallel experience.” 

“I thought my victory would somehow taste sweeter,” David sniffs as Patrick gets up to start grabbing pillows and the spare blanket out of the closet. David tries his best not to watch the way his shoulder blades move under the thin fabric of his shirt as he works. 

“What if we do Rock, Paper, Scissors for the bed?” Patrick suggests after he turns back around, where David is still shaking off his previous impulse. There is nothing that Patrick isn’t willing to compete for, apparently. He’s barefoot, so he isn’t even wearing his lucky socks. 

“You’re on.” David agrees and Patrick drops the bedding he’s been dragging along with his padfolio full of trivia notes next to the bed. 

“Best two out of three?”

“Fine.” David holds his fist over his open palm and Patrick’s eyes are still holding his, challenging. There’s something bright behind them, almost playful. “On three,” he counts down and Patrick’s own fist bobs in the air, wired with kinetic energy and the ungainly desire to emerge victorious, probably.

Patrick wins the first round with scissors over David’s paper and then David wins the next two, throwing paper to Patrick’s consecutive throws of rock.

“Wanna go again?” The last time Patrick asked that question with the same hopeful lilt, they were naked and fucked out and happy. 

At this point, David would be happy just to get Patrick back in his bed. “Listen. We both need a good night’s sleep if we’re going to do well tomorrow. What if we just share?”

“I mean, I’m not opposed to not having to sleep on the floor.” Patrick picks up his pillow and fluffs it. “Do you think we need to make any more ground rules?”

“Do we?” David questions. He didn’t expect Patrick to respond this positively to his suggestion. Dinner had been...a roller coaster. “I mean, my blankets are my blankets and please keep your snoring to a minimum.”

“Fair enough,” Patrick agrees and it seems settled. David wonders why that was so easy. But then he looks down at the hard floor and thinks that a plush mattress may be a slightly bigger draw than he is when it comes to sleeping in the bed. Which is fine. He's willing to be second place, for now.

David finishes his nightly routine and is finally ensconced under the covers when Patrick gets up to grab something out of his duffel bag. 

“Oh hey, I almost forgot. My dad sent this for you. He said he marked all the most pertinent passages, but I did a little...editing. He tends to get excited about numbers, and I know you’re more into the creative side of things.”

It’s the book that Mr. Brewer had told David that he would mail, the one he thought David needed to read about theaters in a new marketplace. There’s a sticker on the inside cover that says _From the Library of Clint Brewer._ David flips through it to a few of the highlighted pages before placing it gently on the nightstand. “Um, please don’t tell your dad this, but I think I might be unemployed soon. This book may be a moot point.” 

“I don’t think he marked a passage for that, David,” Patrick jokes. “I’m sorry. Do you want to tell me what happened?"

David relays what he knows about Vic selling, which isn’t much, and how he and Stevie are now fairly certain that they’re destined for part-time employment (and full-time wine stealing) at the Blouse Barn. 

When David finishes, Patrick gives a low whistle. “That’s...well, it’s a good thing we have a Paradigm to win tomorrow, right?”

“Hmm,” David agrees, settling back against the “In” pillow. Patrick fluffs “Love” and turns onto his side so that he’s still facing David. “I’m definitely feeling better about our chances. But we should go to sleep, don’t you think?”

Patrick blinks slowly, like he’s processing new information. “Yeah,” Patrick says after a few beats. “We probably should.”

Then Patrick is still for a moment before finally turning to flick off the lamp and pulling his blanket up over his shoulders. David lays with his arms down at his sides, hoping that sleep manages to come easily.

It doesn’t. 

In the dark, it isn’t long before Patrick is minimally snoring in the same soft and rhythmic cadence that has managed to lull David to sleep plenty of times over the past few months. The problem tonight is that his brain can’t seem to stop buzzing. Patrick is inches away instead of miles; David couldn’t have predicted that this morning if Miss Cleo and her psychic friends would have delivered the news to him personally. And Patrick’s snoring isn’t the only rhythm they’re falling back into; for the first time in weeks, David actually feels like there’s more than just a chance that they might start to repair the rift he caused.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the whirring radiator clicks off, and David’s half-asleep body and brain automatically seek refuge in the warmest possible option.

David opens his eyes to find his face buried in the sandpapery stubble of Patrick’s neck, breathing in familiar cedary aftershave without regard to time and place and circumstance, until his heart seizes in his chest. He’s plastered to Patrick’s side, body pressed to Patrick’s from chest to ankle. _Too far_ , he scolds himself, but doesn’t actually move. Patrick squirms beneath him and David goes stiff, then, expecting the gradually more conscious Patrick to push him away or jump out of bed as if he’s just been burned. A bleary voice comes from above his head. “Hey David? You’re on my arm.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” David apologizes as he does a roll of shame back toward his side of the bed and off of Patrick’s limbs. He’s hard. He’s hard, just from pressing fully-clothed against Patrick through multiple layers of hotel linens. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“It’s just,” Patrick’s voice is tight with what might be pain and David can tell that he’s trying and failing to make a fist from the movements against the covers. His hand trembles slightly. “I think it just needs a stretch. To get the cramp out. I’ll be okay.”

“Do you want—can I help you somehow? Is there something I can do?” David asks as Patrick uses his core to pull himself up to more of a sitting position, his right hand already pulling and kneading at his left. He’s digging his thumb into his wrist in a circular motion, biting his lip as he works, and Patrick shakes his head, _no_.

“No, it’s just..it’ll pass. Go back to sleep; I’ll be okay.” 

The alarm clock reads 2:35 a.m. 

“I’ll just—” David attempts to imitate the maneuver Patrick just made in propping himself up against the pillows, but his core muscles are not as...well-developed, apparently, “—be here if you need me.”

It’s too dark to tell but David is almost certain that Patrick gives him a little side eye. “Okay, David. Thanks.” And it’s quiet for a bit, while Patrick stretches and flexes his wrist and fingers, until he speaks again. “You know, I used to wake up all the time because I was playing in my sleep.”

“Occupational hazard, I’d imagine.” David picks at the blanket. “Sleep piano or sleep guitar? Don’t tell me it was sleep accordion. I can’t bear it.” This isn’t the first time David has seen Patrick experience pain in the middle of the night, but it is the first time that he hasn’t been able to reach out automatically and soothe it. 

“All of the above, sorry.” Patrick readjusts the blanket where David had pulled it back. “My hands, sometimes, do their own thing, I guess. I must be dreaming about playing and they just sort of go on auto-pilot. I mean, anytime a song comes on the radio, I’m picking out the chords in my head, figuring out the melodies. I think it just transfers to dreams.”

David rearranges, shifts to his side so he can face Patrick more fully. “I don’t know about you, but it sure seems like your subconscious is trying to tell you something.”

“Muscle memory is a pretty fascinating thing, but I don’t think it’s a coded message.” Patrick is quiet for a moment. “It doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

“No?” 

“No. Do you know what the first doctor that I ever saw about this told me? She said that the best way to solve my problem was to avoid the repetitive action that caused it. And do you know what that sounded like to me?”

“A death sentence?” David ventures, tentative. He can’t imagine what it would be like if a doctor told him he wouldn’t be able to see the world through his own aesthetic lens anymore; Patrick is so much stronger than he is.

“No,” Patrick laughs, but it’s hollow. “It was...I mean, it was a shock, at first, but honestly, in a lot of ways, it felt more like I was getting a second chance.”

David must have heard incorrectly. “Wait. What?”

“Have you ever done something for so long that it just starts to feel automatic? And then automatic starts to feel...I don’t know, like it’s way more effort than it’s worth?”

David isn’t sure if he does, although he does know what it’s like to have the reverse: when nothing seems automatic and no matter how much effort you expend, you don’t get the result you’re looking for. That is what it was like living here until he finally started to accept that he wasn’t leaving right away. “Kind of, yeah. But I didn’t think—it never sounded like that was how you felt.” Unless David wasn’t hearing the right part of the story and that’s why listening to Patrick’s records sounded like listening to a stranger.

“Let me, let me show you something.” On the nightstand, Patrick fumbles for his phone, hitting the screen and scrolling until he finds what he’s looking for. He hands the phone to David, the blue light of the screen illuminating Patrick’s profile in the space they’re sharing. “Good old Button Down Pat,” he says grimly.

“Aw, good old Button Down Pat is cute, even if he’s wearing a button-up.” David can’t help but say, because he is. Even with the close-cropped haircut and the devastatingly ironed blue shirt, he’s cute. “But you do look very serious.” Good Old Button Down Pat is onstage, clearly playing at a concert venue, his bandmates behind him. The picture is taken from the wings, so a good portion of the audience is visible, but Patrick is facing more toward the camera than the front. It’s the face David has seen when Patrick is concentrating fully, puzzling out an answer he can’t seem to find, diligently folding a paper hedgehog, watching one of his sports on television and not liking the score. Where his mouth turns down but not in the smiley way. “So you weren’t enjoying this?”

“I think I did, for a while. When I was a kid and I was away from home for the first time and there was a whole world out there, you know? And for a long time, I thought I wasn’t enjoying it because I wasn’t out and I wasn’t fully myself, but this,” he taps the phone screen, “this was after.

“I thought I was happy, a lot of the time, and maybe it was because I was with my best friends and they accepted me and knew me for who I was but everyone else—I don’t know. Going on stage started to feel like a chore. I dreaded it. Rachel, she...she fed off an audience. Like if she didn’t feel well during the day, when she went onstage at night, she was immediately healed. When I went on stage, it was so draining, I’d sleep for two days afterward.”

“But that’s just...your wrist was bothering you. It makes sense that you’d be off.”

In the half-light, Patrick shakes his head. “No, this was all before.”

Whenever David has asked about what Patrick’s life was like as a musician, Patrick always talks about Rachel and Dev and Judah, his bandmates. He doesn’t talk about crowds or recording albums or performing. He talks about the taco trucks they’ve visited or adventures they had on trips between gigs. He talks about them like they’re his family. 

David doesn’t know what that means, exactly, other than he’s made assumptions and maybe he wants to stop making them and start asking more direct questions. 

“So is music...not what you want anymore?” David hands him back the phone. He doesn’t know what that leaves room for, if Patrick has secret dreams of being an astronaut or something. If it leaves room for David, suddenly, and he’s managed to crowd himself right out.

“I don’t...know. I mean, it’s what I know. I’ve done it my whole life and I know I’m good at it. Not everyone gets to do something that they’re really good at and still gives you all that freedom."

“But you should be able to do something that you love.” David knows how happy he was in the gallery because it was his passion; Patrick should be able to have that same passion.

Patrick pauses. “Yeah. I should. But being a touring musician in an alt-folk band long-term? I don’t think that’s what I want.”

David thinks about telling Patrick _I don’t know what I want long-term either, but I know I want you._ It sits on the tip of his tongue like an answer that he’s had to wrack his brain to uncover even though it’s been there all along, but he can’t seem to get it to come out. 

They allow the silence to lap over them in waves, cresting with each breath. David searches for the right words, for the better apology that he knows he owes Patrick, for something that will make this feel less like what might have been and more like what actually could be.

Instead, he looks down at Patrick’s lap where he’s cradling his left arm. “Hey, is that still bothering you?”

Patrick nods and David thinks that he can feel as Patrick moves just the slightest bit closer, his body beginning to relax.

“Do you think maybe I could help you?” David ventures, his hand hovering in the space between them. It’s alright if Patrick refuses, he tells himself, but he needs to take the chance. “I’ve been told I have very steady hands.” 

“Huh,” Patrick’s voice is low and soft. “I thought I’d heard that somewhere.”

“Yes, from my full page ad in the Elmdale Chronicle,” David says, remembering their _boyfriend_ conversation as they danced at the Senior Center. He glides his fingers over the soft skin of Patrick’s arm, tracing over the puckered crosshatch of the surgical scar that may have been both their start and their end. “Is this alright?” 

Patrick nods. “Yeah. Yes. Please.” 

David kneads his thumb into the knob of Patrick’s wrist the way Patrick had been doing earlier, applying deeper pressure as he gradually works his way up Patrick’s left arm, inch by inch. Patrick hums in approval as David rubs the underside of his forearm, then trails his fingernails lightly over the same area.

He isn’t sure if they’ve resolved what they’ve needed to resolve; in fact, he knows that they haven’t, but he wants to try. He wants Patrick to know he wants to try.

It’s too dark to see Patrick’s face and it’s just dark enough to make David brave. “What you said earlier about getting a second chance—” David starts, as he raises Patrick’s hand to his mouth. David leaves a trail of feather-light kisses along the same route, tender and soft around the sensitive skin. 

“Hmm, yes,” Patrick hums in response, relaxing under David’s touch as he strokes down the backs of his fingers, over the knobby veins. 

David kisses the base of each finger and then up to the tip, remembering all of the things Patrick’s hands are capable of, all of the ways they’ve taken him apart and put him back together, all of the ways that he’s missed them and wants to have them back on his body, back in his own. 

“It’s just—do you think this might be ours? That we could start over?”

Patrick doesn’t answer immediately, although he moves closer, his breathing shallow and heavier. In the dark, David is still at a disadvantage, unable to search Patrick’s face for what he knows would be the truth. He wants to push harder for an answer and is about to when Patrick pulls his hand out of David’s, but only so that he can stroke David’s face with it, pull his jaw closer, bring his lips to David’s, lick into his mouth. “I...I don’t know.”

“So what are we doing here?” 

David can feel as Patrick's lip curls against his in a smile. It's the most home he's felt in eons. Patrick strokes at David's hair. “We’re kissing. I believe kids these days call this the kissing,” and then he leans back in to kiss David again, something tender and still searingly hot. “And frankly, David, I think the youths might be onto something.”

Nothing is as good as kissing Patrick; it’s everything. It’s fireworks and brightness and heat; it’s explosive. Patrick’s mouth is insistent against his and David doesn’t know if this is kissing to kiss or kissing to make up and he doesn’t dare ask because he’s afraid to know the answer. What he knows is that Patrick’s fingers are fumbling to unbutton his pajama shirt and their mouths and limbs are tangled and all he wants is this, for as long as he can get it. 

He doesn’t need all the answers right now. This is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Distractivate (and ultimately, Natalie Imbruglia) for the delightful beta work on this chapter. 
> 
> Please, as always, tell me what you think!


	10. Chapter 10

David wakes up tucked into Patrick like a note into an envelope, all of their edges meeting, snug. His cheek is pressed firm against Patrick’s bare chest, tickled by the smattering of golden hairs that surround tiny constellations of light freckles ( _oh, Baku, Ajzerbaijan, it’s been far too long since I’ve visited)_. David is wrapped in the scent of Patrick’s drugstore aftershave and sweat and the results of their previous evenings’ exploits and he just wants to breathe it all in for as long as possible.

In the morning light, David nestles even closer, skims his lips across the nearest exposed skin, and closes his eyes so he can further savor the moment in case the light of day ushers in any regret. When Patrick wakes up, he’ll have to decide what to do with this feeling that he still hasn’t done enough to show Patrick that he’s sure, and sorry, and serious about trying again. But for now he can just revel in the familiar landscape of Patrick’s arms.

His mind is too awake for that, though. So much for savoring, David thinks. Especially since they haven't settled anything, really. Just had some (admittedly amazing) sex, which could be a way to start over or a way to say goodbye or just a way to have some fun for one night. What does Patrick actually want? 

Maybe he should wake Patrick up now and ask him. David could apologize again, ask him to stay again, tell him that he wants to kiss him under the chuppah again. Maybe he should try to sneak out and find flowers. Some kind of olive branch. He squints at the clock; there isn’t time for that. He could go and bring back breakfast, prepare a speech. That _could_ work. Except David desperately needs to see Patrick’s face when he wakes up. He can’t risk him waking up alone and coming to his own conclusions. Maybe he should beg. Grovel. No. Patrick doesn't seem like he'd respond well to groveling. Maybe he should give them both the day to focus on winning the Paradigm. Not let himself get wrapped up in his own fears. Again. Maybe it’s better to show him how good they can be together, rather than interrupt his sleep just to tell him.

“Morning, sunshine,” comes Patrick’s sleep-rusty voice, loosening the grip on David’s back where a hand is splayed between his shoulder blades. There is no way David is going to last the day without trying again to fix what he broke between them.

Angling upward, he’s met with a tentative smile and Patrick’s minty fresh breath. “Hey you’ve already been out of bed,” David lightly accuses. 

“Well, you know where my mouth has been,” Patrick teases and yes, he appreciates the dental hygiene. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Me either; I seem to remember giving you glowing reviews.” David will admit to quite a bit of undignified shouting at more than one point and the added bonus of his own whited-out vision. And looking at Patrick squinting against the morning light, he has to ask. “Have you thought any more about more than...last night?”

Against the sheets, Patrick’s mouth twitches into a lopsided smile, and that warm, fluttery feeling returns to David’s gut. David can’t help but lean in to kiss him, even though maybe that’s too forward. He should have started with the flowers. Under the blankets, Patrick’s knees press against David’s where they’re curled together. It feels safe. Patrick is safe. Patrick has been angry and hurt and hesitant, but he’s also still here. 

“I have. We should talk about more than last night,” Patrick agrees. He rolls onto his back and it’s hard to tell what his face is doing. “When you asked about second chances, did you have something particular in mind?”

“The state of the global economy, first and foremost.” That earns him another quick smile. “But after we tackle that, I’m just...I just wanted to say glad we were able to do, uh, this,” he gestures vaguely between their naked bodies, “even if you’re not sure about…things. About us. Yet.”

Patrick takes a deep breath and turns back. “David, I am very, very sure about you. I was always pretty obvious about it, I thought.”

“I found your wooing process to be quite subtle, actually." David sniffs, playfully haughty. He was the oblivious idiot who didn't believe Patrick could like him. David didn't know how much he enjoyed being wooed until he realized that Patrick was doing it, in a very Jane Austen novel kind of way, but more modern, and without all the people throwing themselves on the ground. He hopes, if he can manage not to push him away again in the name of helping, that they can find a way to align their lives again. That he can be the person Patrick still desires to woo. "And what...what about now?" 

"Are you looking for less subtlety?" David shrugs and Patrick's mouth curves as he considers for a moment. David loves that Patrick is always so willing to play the game, to _yes, and_ every ridiculous thing he says. "I left my Cupid's bow at my parent's house, if that's what you're asking. But at this point, I think the best play is being up front about my feelings.”

“Hmm, that sounds like exactly the right amount of subtlety.” David briefly strokes the side of Patrick’s face, along his jaw. David can see as snark wars with sincerity behind Patrick’s eyes. He loves that, too. But he also knows Patrick can use the snark to avoid a topic that scares him, or maybe in this case, one that hurt him. “Listen. You don’t have to decide right now, even, I just...want to put it out there. And I know that you appreciate making a more informed decision. I’ve seen your rotating calendar of study topics, so in the interest of full disclosure, I think you should know that I love you. You don’t have to say it back, that’s not what this is. I just needed you to know. That no matter what you choose, whether you give me a second chance or tell me you can’t do this again, I love you.”

“That’s...definitely helpful to know, yes.” Patrick is quiet for a moment, until a smile spreads slowly across his face. Patrick may not be ready to say it, but David no longer doubts that he feels it. “Can I ask you something though?”

David nods, his heart hammering against his ribcage. He feels like a gang of pirates just asked him very politely to walk the plank. “Yeah of course. Anything.”

“What...what did I do to make you think that I didn’t want what we had? I mean, I thought I knew what you wanted and I thought we were...I—I know I should have told my parents more about you but I was all in, David, a hundred percent, and it felt like you might have been too.”

“No, I knew, I know you’re in this. I was just, it was...With everything that happened that morning, I was worried that I read the signs wrong. I’ve read the signs wrong before. And you, you deserve to get what you need. I wanted you to get what you need.”

“Do I deserve to decide what I need?”

“Yes. Definitely. Always.” David can’t take his eyes off of Patrick, off the tight line of his mouth, off the warmth of his gaze, the rosy tinge of his skin. “I’m sorry I decided for us. I just...I’d like it if you would come back. Or if it works better, I could move closer to you. I need a new job anyway. I just want to make everything okay again.” At this, the line of Patrick’s mouth curls into a smile, the one he reserves for David like a secret handshake, something just between them.

“David, I want to come back. I want to be your boyfriend again and all the things that come with it.”

“You’d be taking on a lot of responsibilities,” David feels his smile slowly expanding, his shuttered heart slowly opening its sashes. “Are you ready for all of that? All the tending and the watering and the constant hair-petting?”

“I’m sorry, are you my boyfriend or an exotic houseplant?” Patrick kisses the side of David’s mouth. “‘Cause we’ve already taken care of a plant together and look how well that turned out.”

“We don’t actually know what Alexis is doing to Plant David right now; he could be slowly withering away in a too tiny pot for all we know.”

“Let’s just assume that he’s not and could you please just have her text us a photo of him, next to a newspaper with today’s date, so we know he’s okay?”

“Should I text her now, or…” David jokingly reaches for his phone but Patrick doesn’t stop him and actually gives a wave that says _proceed._ “Oh, okay. I should just text her now.”

Patrick watches with great intent as David sends the request and then relaxes as it is returned with an eye-rolling Alexis, a prickly but thriving plant, and much relief. “All right. Our plant is okay.”

“Are we okay?” David asks. 

“I think we will be. But David, the next time you decide that I’m better off without you, do you think you might consult me first? For my part, I promise when I see that crazed look in your eye, I will do whatever I can to talk you out of it because I don’t...I don’t think my heart can handle another, uh, attack.”

“What look?”

“Like there’s an online sample sale and it’s every-person-for-themselves.”

David smiles because he can see how hard Patrick is trying to pick his way slowly through the wreckage. Knowing how strong Patrick is, how brave, it’s hard to imagine what it must take to hurt him and having achieved that with little to no planning, David is scared to think what else he might actually be capable of. He never wants to repeat that, ever.

“God, I know, I’m sorry. I thought...It doesn’t matter now. I was wrong.” Squeezing Patrick’s fingers, David brings his free hand over to wrap around the back of Patrick’s neck and pull him closer. Sunlight streams through the curtains and reflects in Patrick’s coppery hair, in his gold-tipped lashes, in the amber-gold that rims his brown eyes and David knows, definitely knows, that he loves him. He’s so grateful that he even has the chance to love him. “Patrick, I don’t want you to be anywhere you don’t want to be.”

“David, I promise I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

“Surrounded on all sides by unwashed basement dwellers in a three star hotel in Ottawa?”

“Yes. Smell the sadness.” Patrick’s dimple emerges as his eyes glint. “No. With you. Because I love you, too.”

“Are you sure?” David asks, because he can’t remember the last time someone chose him when they had other options. David used to think that trivia was the first time he really understood what winning felt like, but he really only started feeling that way when Patrick joined the team, and now he thinks maybe feeling like winning had nothing to do with trivia. He repeats himself. “Are you sure?”

“David, I am six points sure.” Patrick says. “I love you. I want to come home.”

 _Home._ David hears it and it reverberates in his chest and it fills him with a sense of hope that he’d thought was forever lost to him. He’d thought Patrick was forever lost to him, but he’s right here, rumpled and sleep-warm and perfect. Okay, not perfect, no one is perfect, but he’s pretty fucking close. 

And Patrick is kissing him and laughing and David is kissing back and happily squirming under the brightness of Patrick’s attention and things are finally starting to feel right and good and whole again. 

David knows they haven’t talked about all the things they need to talk about, like Patrick’s career or the treatment for the arm that woke both of them up in the night. But he doesn’t need the answers right now. Certainly not before coffee, and maybe breakfast. He gets ready to settle back into Patrick’s side when the alarm clock bleats its unholy wake up call.

“I don’t want to leave this bed,” David whines, hits snooze, and then pulls Patrick closer, nuzzling into his neck. “Do you think we could somehow convince them to bring the contest to us?”

Patrick angles his head down to kiss David’s nose. “I have very severe doubts that they will do that, but don’t forget, there’s a waffle bar until 10:30.”

“I don’t think I appreciate how easily you’re able to sway me to your side of things,” David pouts.

“Hmm,” Patrick starts to unwrap himself from David’s torso so that he can start kissing a trail down it. David shivers pleasantly under his touch. “I’m kind of grateful for it, actually.” He says into the sensitive skin by David’s navel. “We have eight minutes until the snooze button goes off and we miss all the good toppings on the waffle bar. What do you say we make the most of it?”

David can’t help but agree and Patrick stays true to his word. With thirty seconds to spare before the alarm, David is seeing stars and Patrick is at the center of his universe.

* * *

They take record-breakingly efficient showers (separately, or else they’d never leave the room in time) and race down to find the waffle bar toppings dwindling, but satisfactory. David will never understand how Patrick chose granola and yogurt over Nutella and whipped cream but he has plenty of time now to work on Patrick’s dietary preferences, not that he really wants to change a thing. He is done making Patrick’s decisions for him. (Even when there’s granola involved; Patrick has to be some kind of chipmunk; it doesn’t make sense otherwise.)

“Come on, there are barely any twigs in this granola. Just try it,” Patrick offers him a forkful of god-knows-what from his plate. Is that a stone? “It gives your bite of waffle both crunch and texture.”

“I don’t associate either of those words with my waffle and neither should you,” David says, appetite diminished. Although that could also be because he’s feeling some of his anxious energy return. In bed, they decided everything and nothing. If David has learned anything from this most recent experience, it is that he no longer wants to waste time not knowing things he should know and he wants to stop flailing wildly about in the absence of cold, hard facts. “So when you say ‘come home,’ do you mean right away?” The question catches Patrick off guard but he nods. “I just—I’d like to know what your plans are, once you come back.”

“You sound like my parents, who I both love and respect,” Patrick deflects, rubbing a little at David’s back after he rests his fork on his almost empty plate. “I have to call Ray, first thing. I asked him to help sublet my place and you know how fast he works; I don’t wanna end up homeless. Maybe I’ll take some more time off, work on a few projects, I don’t know. I mean, I'm on a pretty awesome trivia team.” 

“And that’s really what you want?”

“David, what I really want is you. The rest is just details.”

“You have never once thought that a day in your life. You love details. You want to marry details.”

“Yeah well. That was before I ran away to Schitt’s Creek and fell in love with a man wearing black who looks out of place.” Patrick’s face shifts into something even more earnest, if that is humanly possible, and David feels his heart clench at the sheer openness. “And we’re going to make great things together, David Rose. I know it.”

* * *

After breakfast, they meet up with the rest of their team in the lobby where Ted greets their hand-holding with an exuberant, “Looks like you two have got this handled!” and Stevie passes out matching Shut the Front Dior t-shirts under the guise of building team morale.

David scowls and glares and steadfastly refuses to touch it. 

“If we have to have a stamp, I think the sentiment should transfer to a team uniform,” Stevie insists. 

Patrick holds up his shirt to his own chest, “C’mon, David, it’s black and white, and look, aww, they have names of different doors on them.”

“Oh my god, Stevie, you did not just hand me a garment that has “Louvered” printed on the back.” The look of sheer horror on his face is in no way disingenuous and he shivers. “In _Comic Sans,_ no less.”

“How will people know what team you’re on? Or your favorite kind of door?” Stevie looks at him with her levelest of gazes until he finally just takes the shirt and vows to exact his revenge. 

They have a few minutes to kill after checking in for the Paradigm, but not quite enough to run back to the room, so David steers Patrick into a back hallway “to help him change into his new shirt.” He ends up pressing Patrick against the nearest door frame and kissing him until they’re both panting and Patrick’s t-shirt is practically rucked up to his armpits. 

A hotel staffer rolls a laundry cart behind them and Patrick straightens his clothes in haste, only briefly scandalized. “You’re gonna get us arrested for indecent exposure before we even get in the door,” he says, almost as a challenge he’s willing to accept. “Do you think there might be a closet nearby?”

“Oh my god, you’re insatiable,” David marvels, stumbling a bit as he yanks Patrick bodily into the room with the ice machine. Maybe he’ll have to dunk Patrick in it to cool him off. Not that he wants him to cool off. It’s a safety measure, really; can’t have Patrick’s brain overheating with David-lust. Although watching Patrick lose control like this is a whole other level of lust and now David is wondering if they both shouldn’t take a dip.

“Listen. It’s just...I went too long without touching you and you look very cute in that t-shirt. I just wish I could see more of your arms.” Patrick groans a little in demonstration of his protest, running his hands up and down the fabric where the offending shirt is layered over David’s Neil Barrett. His voice lowers an octave as his fingers pick at David’s sleeve, “I just...I love your arms.”

“I promise I will show you my arms tonight, after we win.” David preens. He’s still upset about the polyblend, but what can you do? He’s learned about the benefit of team pride, after all. As a consolation, he reaches down and rubs with great intention over the front of Patrick’s jeans. “Perhaps I’ll show you some other important body parts later as well. But this is probably not the kind of team-building we should be doing right now.”

“I don’t know how you expect me to stop when you’re still doing that,” Patrick has to bite back a groan as he grinds against David’s hand. David’s tongue may or may not be exploring Patrick’s tiny potato chip of an ear, which also isn’t really playing fair. 

“I would absolutely love to fuck you right against this ice machine, but Patrick, we have a job to do here.” David murmurs, reluctantly withdrawing his hand from Patrick’s dick. At that, Patrick’s eyes immediately fly open. 

“Yeah, okay. Yeah.” Patrick pouts. 

David waits patiently as Patrick collects himself, smoothing down his clothing and leaning back against the door frame. He’s obviously still very hard and that is more than a little distracting. His pale muscular arms stand out in stark contrast to the inky black of his Shut the Front Dior team t-shirt (the back not unironically labelled, “French”) and David pulls him forward by the hips anyway. Patrick is right; he can’t keep his hands off him. 

Somewhere in the background, music swells and applause sounds and while David would like to imagine that it is all for them, he knows it means that this particular team-building activity has left them out of time to strategize.

“Fuck, I think the competition is starting,” David says, unable to release his grip on the back of Patrick’s shirt. He thinks it is going to be quite some time before he can fully let Patrick go, still electrified with the hum of a new beginning. “Have we studied enough? Are we prepared? I think I’m okay with Anatomy, but those fucking Science questions—I don’t know if we’re fifty thousand dollars ready yet.”

“David, we’ve been studying for months. You know this stuff inside and out. And what you don’t know, I’ve got covered.” Patrick drops a quick reassuring kiss on David’s neck, an old trick that feels brand new. “We’re gonna get the money.”

* * *

The Paradigm is massive. The contest itself is being held in one of the hotel’s grand ballrooms, with what looks to be a hundred tables of six set up around a large staging area. Enormous projection screens sit in the four corners of the room so that slides with the questions are visible to teams at their seats. Merchandise tables are set up in various places around the perimeter selling t-shirts and hoodies and trivia-related tchotchkes that make David’s soul groan with the garishness. This doesn’t feel anything like meeting at the endlessly sticky Wobbly Elm to play their weekly trivia game.

The table arrangement was predetermined by the organizers and frankly, David finds that Table B13 leaves a lot to be desired. They’re stuffed into a corner, a pillar is obscuring his view of the host, and they are what appears to be miles from the nearest exit or bathroom. 

“This is an egregious seating arrangement,” David announces to the assembled group. 

“I think it’s cozy,” Patrick offers, squeezing in next to George (whose shirt reads “Barn”) and Tennessee (“the one that splits in half”), who seem to be busy organizing the scrap paper and distributing pens labelled with the Paradigm logo.

David reluctantly allows himself to be seated across from Ted (“A-door-able”), who is also sitting behind an array of what looks to be hairy half-naked elves. He is definitely looking at bare plastic asses right now. “What the fuck are those?”

“Joan and Dot sent us their Bingo Trolls as good luck charms. They actually wanted you to have this one, Davy,” Ted says, handing David the troll dressed in a tuxedo jacket. To Patrick, he distributes a red and blue haired one wearing avian athletic regalia. “And Joan insisted on the Olerud Troll for you, Patty-cakes.”

“Okay,” Patrick blushes. “That’s what I get for leaving them in the lurch with the medley.”

“It’s really my fault, so it’s appropriate that I am also being punished,” David says as he pretends not to feel the deadened eyes of the weird plastic talisman boring a hole into his soul as he starts to prepare their answer sheets. “It’s just, must it stare at me like that?”

Stevie (whose shirt reads "Overlord" in what she insists is a misprint of "Overhead") reaches over to turn David’s hideous good luck charm so it faces Patrick’s, until she picks them both up and starts squishing their faces together in approximation of a kiss, making loud horrible smacking noises. David’s eyes roll directly to the top of his head and Stevie looks back at him innocently. “What? They want who they want. Thank God you two worked it out or that would have been embarrassing.”

“No, that wasn’t embarrassing for anyone at all.” He expects that Stevie can wring the sarcasm out of his statement while he’s otherwise engaged.

At least Stevie had the wherewithal to bring the stamp bag, which is already sitting at David’s space. When he draws out the stamp, a small origami frog hops out behind it.

“Oh, hey.” Patrick says softly. “I remember that little guy.”

So does David. It’s crazy to think how far they’ve come since that first day playing trivia together. Or how much more a tiny paper frog can mean when the person who made it sticks around, or more specifically, is willing to come back after you push him away. David touches the corner of the frog with reverence. “You used him to try to cheer me up after the avocado incident.”

“Yeah, I did.” Patrick rubs David’s leg. “In Japan, they’ll put the paper frog in their purse so that the money they spend will come back to them.” Patrick gives him a meaningful look. “Or so that the people they love will return home.”

“Okay, that is much more romantic than a poorly-dressed plastic doll with unfortunate grooming habits,” David catches Patrick’s lips in a brief kiss and sets the frog carefully on top of the stamp.

David knows that his face is doing something ridiculous because his cheeks are starting to hurt from smiling so much and even though they’re in a room full of people, he very much feels like Patrick is the only other person there.

“Okay, if you guys are gonna be gross, you can go sit with The Ides of Jo March,” Stevie says when David looks at Patrick for the fifteenth time and another smile spreads rapturously across his face. He feels like a lovestruck idiot, so he must look like an idiot, but truly, he does not care. 

But once the rules are read and the game has begun, David finds that both he and Patrick settle easily back into game mode, playing off each other like they always have. 

The host of the Paradigm is no Ray Butani, a thought David never pictured occurring inside of his own head. This host is dry and a little monotone and it throws off David’s rhythm enough that he has to remind himself that questions are questions and it doesn’t matter who reads them. Patrick is seated to his right, folding his scrap paper as if it’s four months ago and he’s just joined the team, although David’s urge to crowd into his space has increased exponentially.

In the first round, Ted manages to answer a question about turtles in the Galapagos and Stevie puts her knowledge of 1990s grunge bands to the test successfully, leaving George to help them answer a question about the origin of the word ‘charcuterie’ in the category of Food. David is starting to feel like Dorothy in _The Wizard of Oz,_ that the answers were in all of them, all along.

In the second round, David correctly answers an appropriately categorized Fashion question about Tom Ford and he and Patrick puzzle out a solution to a Trivia-quation involving the number of Canadian Olympic Hockey gold medals won (9) multiplied by the number of remakes of _A Star is Born_ (3). The biggest victory of this round may be that David is forced to snatch the eternally-clicking pen out of the hand of the man he loves only once, although the jiggling leg he still cannot manage to contain.

Patrick slides the scoring sheet under David’s nose after the team hits a snag with a four-part Science question about DNA nucleotides, which they luckily only needed to bet one point on, and the last round of questions before Halftime brings their score to thirty-seven out of a perfect 40.

At Halftime, everyone else disperses to restrooms and concessions and vendor tables while David and Patrick stay behind to avoid getting distracted by their favorite dark corner near the ice machine (although David does kindly offer to revisit Bangkok later when there isn’t fifty grand on the line).

David’s shoulders and back ache with the tension he’s been holding in them all morning. But he barely has to roll his head around on his neck before Patrick is hustling to knead at the knot between his shoulder blades. 

“I was thinking,” David starts after leaning into the firm touch for a few minutes, “that since I’m the one without a job, maybe I could come stay with you instead.”

“Oh.” Patrick sounds surprised and his hands go still. “I—um, I don’t have a job either, so really we could live anywhere, if you wanted.”

David has to twist around to look up at Patrick, who is smiling from ear to ear like a lunatic. “What? How? Will we be itinerant travellers? Vagrants? Patrick, I love you but I refuse to become a hobo.”

“No?” Patrick gives David’s back a pat and settles back into his chair at David’s side. “No. You don’t have to live a life on the rails, I promise. I'm actually partial to Schitt's Creek, if I get a vote. But I did quit the band.”

“I can’t—wow. You quit.” David isn’t quite sure how to feel yet, but Patrick certainly seems lighter. And if he’s happy, David is happy.

“Yeah. I talked to Dev and Judah and Rachel about it when I went home. They understand that it’s time for me to move on.”

“Wow. That’s...how do you feel about that?”

“I think I’m relieved, honestly. I felt like I was keeping another secret and I think I’m getting tired of holding things back. I’m glad it’s out there.”

“And I’m not going to come home someday to find you out on our front porch drunkenly serenading our neighbors about all the songs you could have sung to adoring crowds?” They don’t have a front porch, much less one that they might call “ours” but it’s too late to revise. Patrick is already looking too fond to tell if he catches it.

“No. Definitely not. Things change. I’m happy with the life I’ve got; I’m happy with you.”

“Me too.” David likes who Patrick is very much, and even though he still has questions, he’s getting more answers by listening. Patrick looks so intent, so relieved, like he’s recently had revelations of his own. David just squeezes his arm, encouraging him to go forward. 

“I—I think I figured out why I stuck with it as long as I did. I just—I liked the feeling of family all together, on the road.” Patrick folds and refolds the lotus flower he’s been working on for the last round, an autonomic response of his fingers. David is fascinated by the movement and the poetry of it, the effort Patrick will put into something so simple. Even something not so simple, like making a home. Patrick’s fingers pause and he looks up to catch David’s eyes. “But I also spent so much time trying to be someone that other people wanted me to be, with Rachel, with my parents, with record labels and publicity… I never got to be myself like I do here. With you.”

David likes the idea of being the place where Patrick is truly himself. “But won’t you miss your family?”

Patrick shrugs and looks like he’s about to crush David with earnestness. “What I really miss is seeing Stevie every day and letting George try to poison me with his culinary experiments. And damnit, I like Ted’s commitment to single handedly ruining word play for an entire town.”

“He’s actually eased off that a little bit here lately,” David interjects.

“Eh, you didn’t hear his whole riff on spaying earlier. It was...impressively graphic. And okay, maybe Tennessee doesn’t have a wealth of redeeming friendship traits but she’s very environmentally conscious and everybody has that one weird cousin, right? Plus, I can’t leave Dot and Joan alone with this medley we’re working on down at the Senior Center. I just can’t.”

“No. We cannot leave Dot and Joan high and dry like that.”

“Definitely not.” Patrick leans over and captures David’s lips in a calming kiss. Maybe it isn’t so much a kiss as it is smiling at each other from close range. But either way, David feels a peace he hasn’t felt in weeks. “My family is here now. And I’ll find something else that I love to do that doesn’t have an expiration date, you know?”

“You will,” David says, accepting another kiss just as Patrick’s stomach starts to growl. “Seriously, this is why human beings aren’t meant to eat granola.”

Patrick laughs and pulls David up out of his chair, aiming him toward the concession area. They join Ted and Stevie in line where they grab hot dogs and poutine, which David _mostly_ shares with his hungry boyfriend, and the game seems to fly by after that. 

The questions may not be exactly what Patrick and his statistical analysis had predicted, but they come fairly close, and almost all of the questions seem like something they’ve either been asked before or are closely associated with a subject matter that they’ve already studied. They’re practically vibrating out of their seats with excitement when they find out they’re in the lead by eight when it is time for the final question. David allows Patrick to do the final math for their bet. 

David’s hands shake as he answers the last five all or nothing questions with the help of all of his teammates, because he can feel the win, the same way that he feels the care and affection radiating off of Patrick at his side.

When the final scores go up on the giant screens, Shut the Front Dior is in first place and it isn’t long before Patrick is pulling David out of his chair to celebrate, with hands and lips and arms.

They get their picture taken as a team behind the gigantic winner’s check. When the photo arrives in his inbox ten minutes later David sees that he’s right in front. He’s wearing a poly-blend, his hair is lopsided and he’s squeezed up against a beaming and beautiful Patrick, who has the start of a hickey on his neck from their pregame festivities; Stevie is hunched and her eyes are closed and Ted is half-lidded with his arms on either side of doubly blank-eyed George and Tennessee. It’s a terrible picture and one that David is going to cherish always. He might have it framed and placed next to Patrick’s delicate chart work.

If this picture is any indication, David truly does not understand how these are the people that Patrick is now running toward, rather than away from, and David is right there, front and center. It is David who Patrick is coming home to now and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

* * *

“I’ve always wanted to be a kept man,” Patrick says through a mouth of ramen noodles. After a celebration of zhampagne and drunken karaoke with their teammates, David and Patrick settled back in bed in the Honeymoon Suite, still buzzed, fully clothed, and surrounded by room service take out containers. “I’ve never not had a job or even a prospect before. This is weirdly freeing.” He looks around, helpless. “I hate it.”

“Okay, there he is,” David coos, patting Patrick’s face and removing the carton of ramen from his hand. “So what do you think you’d want to do?”

Patrick starts collecting remnants of their meal and putting them on the floor and table so that he can drape himself more fully over David. David cradles Patrick’s legs over his lap and Patrick rests his head on David’s shoulder. “Hmm, this is nice. Are you hiring for this position?”

If David had known Patrick turned into an aggressively cuddly octopus when even semi-inebriated, he would have gotten him zhampagned up a lot sooner. “I will pay you ten thousand dollars never to move, yes.”

“Mmm, I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars to pay me ten thousand dollars never to move,” Patrick says into David’s neck and then sniffs loudly. “You smell like leather. Is that a thing? Can you smell like leather when you’re not wearing leather? I am learning so much from you, David.”

“It’s my body moisturizer and yes, you are.” David has so much to teach him about proper skin care and he would have sooner if it weren’t for Patrick’s fucking unfairly luminous skin (“I don’t know; I just use bar soap?”). He runs his fingers down the length of Patrick’s spine, resting them at the waistband of his jeans. “But really. I’m not exactly flush with employment over here myself and I don’t know when the Art House will finally sell—”

“David, the Art House.” He says it like he left the stove on and he has to run back into their imaginary kitchen.

“Yes, you remember where Stevie and I both used to work full-time for a paltry sum of money and all the buttered popcorn we could fit in our pockets.”

“That seems highly unsanitary. Please don’t do that anymore. But that isn’t my point. David, what did you tell me about what you wanted to do at the Art House, if it was yours to run?”

David used to dream all the time about changes he could make at the Art House if Vic would have just gotten out of his way. Up and coming artists and Isabelle Huppert double features and maybe some local vendors doing concession items...the list goes on. He had a lot of time to dream. “I told you that I’d make it more of a gallery-like feel, and we’d have more artists and live performances and sell pieces on a consignment model. I told you that, like, the second time I met you. You still remember that?”

Patrick pulls back enough that David can make out his face, but only in soft-focus. He’s still beautiful. David scratches his nails at the nape of Patrick’s neck underneath the soft curls, encouraging Patrick to settle back in. He loves feeling the warm weight of Patrick’s head on his shoulder, his body draped over him like a mink stole. “Yeah. You were really passionate. It was like, I could see how you saw it. You made it really...vibrant. Alive. I mean, I also thought you were the hottest fucking thing I’d ever seen and if you’d offered me a trip to the Gateway, I think I would have gladly accepted.”

“That compliment just undercut your previous compliment, but I will take them both.” David gently pushes Patrick’s legs off his lap, just temporarily, so he can have a more professional conversation, despite Patrick’s groaning protest. 

“Well, we’ve come into a bit of money. Maybe we could...do that.”

“Okay. And this something we’d do together? So like… a partnership?”

“Yes. I mean, if you want to.” Patrick is still pouting because he’s no longer a lap pet of some kind. “I do have a business degree.”

“And remind me again what either one of us would know about saving a failing business? Because I’ve seen the books Vic keeps and they do not look good.”

“I mean, we can learn as we go. I know people, you know people.” Patrick almost tips over the side of the bed wrestling his cell phone out of his too-tight jean pocket. “I’ll google–” he starts typing aggressively with his not-quite-sober thumbs. “See?” He holds his phone out to David.

“Small. Bsjiesnsn lsons.” David looks up at Patrick. “Is that Swedish?”

“No, it should be...small _business loans._ I’ll look up the grants tomorrow. Typing is hard.”

“Yes, please do. I don’t want to have to assemble any more IKEA furniture than absolutely necessary.” 

“No. Of course not.” Patrick starts to shift around so that he’s laying on his side and David curls up behind him, wrapping his arm over Patrick’s torso and allowing his hand to creep up under the hem of Patrick’s team t-shirt. He hooks his chin on Patrick’s shoulder and kisses behind his ear. Patrick relaxes under David’s touch for a moment until he gets restless and twists back around to face him. “Listen David, I want to do this with you. And before you say it’s because I’m high on MSG and zhampagne, I’ve been thinking about this since you said it. I think you have a really good idea for a business. And you have really good ideas in general. You should be sharing them with the world. I, for one, think the world needs more David Rose.”

“I think one of me is quite enough.” David lets his mouth twist in consideration. “And I would make all the creative decisions?”

“I mean, I might want some input now and then—” Patrick pauses at the stern look on David’s face. “—Okay, very little interference from the business side of things. I like math. Math is good.”

“Hmm, the business side of things. Hot hot sex,” David purrs, biting at Patrick’s bottom lip. 

“Wait until you see my calculator and my little rubber thimble thingies,” Patrick murmurs into David’s jawbone. “They’ll help me turn the pages faster. You’ll never look at me the same way again.”

David pulls back and examines Patrick’s face for a moment; the familiar angles and the straight line of his nose, the pillow of his lips, the patches of reddish-blonde stubble. Less than twenty-four hours ago David thought that this face was destined to remain eternally resentful toward him. And now that same face has told David that he loves him and that he wants to start a business with him; something that could tie them together long-term (there’s some paperwork for that right? He should ask Patrick). “Yeah, I don’t know. I kind of like looking at you this way.”

“So is that a ‘yes’?” Patrick licks his lips, pupils blown. “Or an ‘I’ll think about it’?”

David’s fingers can’t seem to unwind themselves from Patrick’s belt loops and his face can’t seem to shut itself down long enough not to broadcast each and every one of his feelings. Really, it’s a relief to allow them to shine through. “I think you know it’s a yes.”

“Yes. Good. Then we’ll put in an offer.” Patrick looks at David then with a smile that turns his face into the sun, something bright and tangible and fresh, his ears tinged rosy from the alcohol and his hair tousled from being wrapped around David’s fingers. It takes David’s breath away, knowing, feeling, seeing, the love of his life. And to be comfortable for the first time thinking those words and not needing to prove anything at all.

In trivia you can go rounds without getting the right answer because they’re not asking the correct questions for your skillset; it can feel like you may never get the points you need to win the game. It’s luck, really. Sure you can study, and you can calculate probabilities, but someone still has to ask the right questions. It isn’t unlike love; you can go on dates and have sex with a thousand people, but no one that you respect or care about or think is nice. You have to have a little luck to find yourself getting asked the right question by the right person; you need to be in the right place at the right time (or in some cases, the wrong place at the right time) and then somehow, the right answer materializes and you’re six points sure that it’s the right person standing in front of you.

Maybe sometimes it does work out.

* * *

Two weeks later, David walks Patrick out to his waiting car, arm threaded through his. He thinks they both might still be glowing from their last-minute, up-against-the-sink-while-Patrick-brushed-his-teeth-mind-blowing fuck. He’s going to have to buy a new toothbrush.

“Please be careful. Obey traffic laws. Get there safe. Bring back lasagna.” David kisses Patrick hard against the driver’s side door. “Tell your parents they can come visit anytime. I will behave one hundred percent less horrifyingly.”

“Well, not _anytime._ Pre-planned, pre-approved visits with established start and end times. I will obviously be wearing pants.”

“Oh will you be, Donald F. Duck?”

“Okay, no more talking to my Dad. And the F is for Fauntleroy.” Patrick kisses his favorite spot on David’s neck.

“I both love and hate that you know that.”

“You know you love it.”

“You know I love you.”

“Yeah, I do.” Patrick tucks himself back into David’s side, arms tight at David’s waist, allowing himself to be held. He fits into David as easily as a puzzle piece, exactly where he belongs. David’s arms are secure around his shoulders and David thinks he might just demand they just stay this way forever, with his cheek balanced on the top of Patrick’s head and Patrick’s breath hot on his neck. Except for all the standing and the part where they’re still clothed. “But when am I going to meet _your_ parents?”

“Oh we’re not risking our fledgling relationship with that group of carnies.” David gives Patrick’s shoulders a vigorous rub. “We’re going to fold you into my family nice and slow.” 

“Hmm. But I do plan on auditioning to be in your mom’s next musical, though. So. We’ll see how long you can keep us parted.”

“Wait. Are you just sleeping with me to get to the director? That isn’t how casting couches work.”

“Yes. I am calling it the Longest Con. You’ve fallen right into my dastardly trap.” Patrick replies, wry. 

“Just for that, I’m telling her to cast you as Kit Kat girl number six.”

“I can’t wait.” Patrick’s wide grin starts to fade and the concentric circles he’s rubbing at the small of David’s back pause. “Listen David, I probably should get on the road if I’m going to make it home by dinner.”

That’s when tears start to prick and burn at the corner of David’s eyes. He just got Patrick back. They’ve barely been separated by more than a few feet over the last two weeks (David is very tired of seeing Patrick in the hockey sweatshirt but the poor guy only has like three outfits here). He and Patrick have found every conceivable way to celebrate their win, some of them even non-sexual, including calling Ray to put in an offer on the Art House, which Vic has already accepted. They have so much planned, though, and time will fly by. It always does. Look at the last four months.

Patrick senses the shift in David’s mood and cups his face. “Hey. Stay with me here. It’s only two weeks.”

“And then we only get three days. And then it’s another two weeks. And it all starts over again.”

“Yeah, but we get three days. And we’ll be doing all those vendor meetings together over Zoom. It will be like I never drove five hundred miles to get lasers zapped into my median nerve. I would also like to remind you that Zoom is useful for _many_ purposes.”

“Hmm. Weren’t you the one who said having Zoom-sex would be ‘wildly unprofessional’?”

“I may have, until I realized there was a way we could differentiate business and pleasure and had Ray send me all of his volcanic backdrops when I was re-updating his website. We are going to have some hot lava Zoom-sex, I’ll have you know.”

“Never say that again.”

“If this volcano is a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’?”

“That’s much worse. Please stop spending so much time with Ted.” David groans and drops his head briefly onto Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m sad you’re leaving and I’m deeply perplexed by your choice of meeting backgrounds, but I’m really happy you’re finally doing this for yourself.”

“Yeah,” Patrick rubs at the back of his neck, his method of signaling vague distress. “I think I was afraid before that if it didn’t work then I didn’t...I had too much to lose. Now even if I lose it, I’ve got you. It’s a much softer landing.”

“And you know I’m going to do whatever I can to make this work, right?” It’s true. When Patrick said he wanted to get the treatment, they put their heads together to figure out how to make it work with the new business and the distance. It isn’t about Patrick’s choice or David’s choice anymore, it’s the choices they make together. "This is what you want and what you need."

“It is. I miss playing my guitar and I’m tired of waking up in pain and David, think of the handjob possibilities. I’ll practically be bionic.”

“Yes, please. Have a very frank discussion with the doctor about enhancing your wrist strength for the purpose of mutual masturbation. And record it, so I can listen as you stammer and blush your way throughout.”

“Will do.” Patrick’s eyes crinkle; he is still wearing that bashful smile that ear-wiggles first and breaks down David's defenses later. “I’ll call you when I get to my parents’ and you can read me paint chip colors until I fall asleep.”

David cannot help that the sand and stone color palette he’s chosen for the Art House doesn’t come with more exciting swatch names. Dust, mindful gray, blank canvas, warm stone...he can hear the gentle rattle of Patrick’s breath already. “Of course. I’ll have you minimally snoring in no time.”

“Sounds like heaven.” Patrick leans up and brushes his lips against David’s, touching his forehead to David’s brow. As light as the kiss is, his grip is fierce. “It’s six to eight weeks apart and then we have all the time in the world, right?”

“Yeah,” David nods. He’s never thought of it like that, really, considering at the time he met Patrick, he’d automatically estimated his departure date. He likes this new way of counting forward instead of counting down. “I love you, drive safe. Text me when you get there.”

When Patrick kisses him, David’s first inclination is to memorize the feel of Patrick’s lips on his, the sweet jolt of electricity that skitters across his skin, the artistry of Patrick's clever tongue; that giddy, dizzying feeling of being breathless and full all at the same time. But as their kiss deepens and progresses, David realizes that he doesn’t need to memorize it, that he’ll have this again and again, as long as they have the choice. “I love you, too,” Patrick breathes as he pulls away and kisses David’s still closed eyelid, and then the next, and David finally opens his eyes when he hears the car door close.

David watches as Patrick’s tail lights exit the parking lot and turn right onto the highway. Today, watching him leave doesn’t feel like a loss. It feels like a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen. This one almost broke me. Distractivate is a champion and a mensch and is basically responsible for anything good you may like here. Also TINN, DelphinaBoswell, vivianblakesunrisebay, and a host of others deserve mention for their assistance in putting me back together and brainstorming.
> 
> There is an epilogue after this, friends.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue.

Alone in bed, David is right on the cusp of sleep—the fluttery, floating bit of consciousness where you’re staring at the empty screen of your mind but you believe that you’re still very much awake—when his bedroom door opens and a figure slips in. At first he thinks it could be a murderer, because it’s the middle of the night, he’s not expecting anyone, and the middle of the night is basically prime murdering time. The figure is too broad for Stevie, and he’s fairly sure that he can see the outline of a guitar case leaning against his wall. He’s about to ask why he’s being murdered at all (is there going to be musical accompaniment?) and could Stevie be murdered first when he feels familiar arms slipping around his back and slightly chapped lips planting themselves on the back of his neck in a decisive kiss. Okay, this is definitely the kind of murder he can get behind. 

“Hey. What are you doing here?” David asks through the unexpected exhilaration of his near-death experience. It also appears that Patrick has just clambered into his bed with his shoes still on, bringing about a brief inner conflict regarding priorities. Of course he chooses Patrick staying close over Patrick with shoes off, but it is a near thing. “You weren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.”

Before he answers, Patrick hunches a bit so that his forehead balances against the center of David’s back. David can hear the heavy thump of shoes as they drop one by one to the floor and David feels very seen in the darkness. “I’m sorry I woke you,” Patrick says, a little breathless himself as he scoots around and repositions himself to once again spoon David. “Once I had my bags packed, it just didn’t make sense to wait until morning. I’ve been ready to come home since I got there.”

David turns around then so that he can face his boyfriend, burrow into his neck, kiss him, feel his skin under his hands. This is all very romantic, the idea that Patrick couldn’t wait to return to him, that he was powerless to resist David’s gravitational pull. It is also possibly very stupid.

“Wait. So you just left under the cover of darkness?” David questions. “Did you say good-bye? Are your poor parents going to wake up to an empty bed and a note? Again?”

Patrick, whose lips have been otherwise occupied exploring David’s earlobe, pulls away briefly. “That’s not...exactly how it happened. But yes, I said good-bye. Technically, I think it was ‘see you later,’ but I didn’t write everything down. If you want, I’ll call my mom and we can verify.” He starts to get out of bed in search of his phone, but David catches his arm and it doesn’t take much of a pull to keep Patrick right where he is. “David, I just wanted to be with you.”

“Good because I missed you,” David responds quickly, because he sees no reason not to say it. Maybe a few months ago, he would have bitten those words back because it would have felt like he was putting too much of himself out there. Today, it’s just the truth. 

“I missed you too.” Patrick kisses him again, a soft kiss that still manages to emanate heat, and rests his forehead against David’s. “Now you’ll have to try and get rid of me.”

“I very much do not want to get rid of you,” David says into Patrick’s waiting mouth. Patrick smells like the verbena shampoo David has been sending him samples of in his bi-weekly care packages (Blind River is basically the wilderness; they don’t understand good shampoo and Patrick has curls to maintain, damnit) and he tastes like the mint gum he chews because it keeps him awake when he’s driving. “But I had plans for your arrival. Tomorrow.” 

Which is true. David has flowers to pick up in the morning from Flowerpots (still with that name; why?) and he was going to attempt to construct a lasagna for which he planned on making his own ricotta, which isn’t even a euphemism. He was actually going to make his own cheese to celebrate Patrick’s arrival. Then he was planning to fuck his boyfriend until his eyes rolled back in his head, which had the advantage of taking slightly less preparation than the cheese but being possibly even more satisfying. 

“Lucky for both of us as well as the fabric of the universe, I didn’t actually fast forward time by coming home early. So, good news, we can still participate in any or all of those plans. If you’re still up for them, of course.”

David doesn’t even need to contemplate. “I never thought I’d say these words, but I am up for anything.” 

Patrick pulls back and in shadows, David can see the burgeoning smile as it develops on his boyfriend’s face. “I am going to hold you to that the next time I make a suggestion about how we should arrange the concession—”

David stops him with a kiss. “I would rather you hold me to it now.” He moves so that he’s straddling Patrick, pinning his arms between his knees and his sides. “Or I’ll hold you to it. Whichever works. I’m flexible.”

“Ooh, have you been doing yoga with Twyla again?” The vein in Patrick’s throat pulses as he strains to get to David’s lips where they hover tantalizingly over his. “I was away being poked and prodded in the name of healing for eight weeks and you went out and got all bendy? Sweet.”

David lowers his head so that Patrick can reach him, though he’s kind of enjoying this new position he’s taken up. “Well, if I’d known you were coming home tonight, I could have gotten ready in other ways,” David bites at Patrick’s supple bottom lip and Patrick’s head sort of chases the movement. Fuck, he missed all of this. 

Beneath him, Patrick is practically quaking with need. David doesn’t blame him. “Oh, see. That’s why I got _myself_ ready. For just this reason.”

“Oh.” David has to close his mouth and reconsider who exactly has the upper hand in this scenario. “In that case, I am definitely extremely flexible.”

Patrick shimmies around beneath him so that he can reclaim the use of his hands and then those hands are careening over the back of David’s head, down to his shoulders, his back. Clothing is shed; maybe it spontaneously combusts, who knows. David doesn’t care at this point because Patrick is home and solid and here. David ends up underneath him, partially spellbound by Patrick’s tongue and lips and how much he _wants_ _wants wants_ every kiss, every bite, every touch, every inch of warm skin.

Patrick can’t seem to get enough of David’s mouth either, but then again, he also can’t seem to get enough of much of anything else. It isn’t long before David has Patrick chanting his name, _fuck me, David, David, David_ , _c’mon, fuck me_ as David drags his stubble along the soft skin of Patrick’s thighs. David takes his time, though, savoring every millimeter of skin, teasing and tasting and waiting until Patrick’s desperation builds to a pleasing crescendo. The sounds Patrick makes as David takes him apart only spur David to orchestrate his further undoing by waiting until the last possible second to wrap his hand around Patrick's leaking cock. It turns out that David is more musical than he’d given himself credit for and Patrick comes so hard, David thinks he might need to check his pulse. 

Afterward, overly pliant Patrick sprawls out on the bed, wearing only one sock, and manages to tumble into a peaceful sleep within minutes of what appeared to be a world-rocking climax. David, on the other hand, stays wired from the combination of Patrick’s sudden appearance and the worry he would meet his ultimate demise tonight, first from theoretical murder and then from actual reunion sex. Maybe David is afraid to take his eyes off of Patrick’s sleeping profile for fear that this night didn’t happen, that if he sleeps, he might wake up to another day of a half-empty bed. As long as David is awake, Patrick’s hand will still be entwined in his, the shiny line of his scar picking up the moonlight as it creeps in through the window. 

David traces the scar lightly with his finger tip as if it is the journey that they’ve taken together over the past two months. While Patrick has ultimately recovered, none of it happened in the way that they originally planned. David tried not to spiral when the original treatment failed, throwing himself into research as if he could find something the desperate Brewers and countless doctors had missed. In the end, David stumbled across an article about repetitive stress injuries he’d bookmarked the night Patrick had told him about his surgery. After a visit to a spine specialist, a few chiropractic adjustments, and sleeping on a new pillow, all the tingling and numbness seemed to resolve. And while it was tense and stressful and nothing either of them wanted to repeat, the time apart was worth it to have him back and finally feeling better. 

If tonight is any indication, Patrick is capable of all kinds of new acrobatics now. David is decidedly and utterly grateful, but the additions to their sex life aren’t even half of it. Having Patrick in his bed, comfortably asleep, no longer worrying that pain would wake him, or keep him up, is something David was often afraid to want. Now that he has it, he plans to keep it. 

Patrick’s arm twitches slightly under David’s touch as his thumb traverses it one last time, soothing both the skin and David’s nerves. He leans over to plant a kiss there, on his favorite part of his favorite person, in his favorite place: anywhere Patrick is. 

Yawning, David rotates their hands to a more natural position for Patrick anyway, just in case, and drifts off to sleep watching the rise and fall of Patrick’s breaths. 

* * *

It turns out that Low-Paid Employees David and Stevie are not nearly up to Owner and Proprietor David’s impossibly high standards when it comes to cleanliness and general upkeep, so he and Patrick spend long days and even longer nights transforming the Art House into David’s vision for their business. David is surprised how easy it is to go from being separated by five hundred kilometers to being together every minute of every day. It has taken more than a month, but they finally have the theaters back in working order and much closer to the decorative richness and splendor that they deserve. Or as Patrick observes, probably just to be maddening, “It looks nice, David. Very clean.” 

It’s nearly time to go home and inhale a quick dinner before returning to complete even more preparation work when Patrick somehow manages to disappear. David does a quick lap around; Patrick isn’t in the bathrooms where David last saw him painting, and he isn’t in the office or the newly Ray-Kondoed storage room either. 

David’s next option is the corridor down to the theaters, which makes no logical sense because per Patrick’s overly detailed schedule, they’re slated to put the finishing touches on those later in the week. And now David smells...tacos.

He’s pretty sure that if this was a stroke, he’d smell toast, and these are fairly specific and familiar tacos he seems to be following the scent of, floating down the hallway like a cartoon dog. Along that same route though, are twinkling fairy lights that he knows he did not hang and origami lotus flowers line his pathway. 

He finally finds Patrick, who has changed into the short-sleeved, physics-defying shirt that accentuates literally everything about his torso. He’s standing in front of one of the smaller theaters, one that they would normally reserve for the really niche art films that only five people want to see. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” David asks as Patrick ducks his head and looks a little shy. It’s the look he gets when he’s about to shed about six layers of snark and just be heartbreakingly truthful. It’s one of the best and worst things about Patrick because no matter how many times it happens, David can never seem to prepare himself fully for the sincerity portion of this event.

“Ever since the Paradigm, I’ve been thinking about second chances, y’know? I just...I keep getting them. With you and with my arm and being able to start this whole other life, I’m really...I’m lucky.”

“You’re not lucky. You deserve it.” David says and he wonders if he believes that yet for himself. He thinks he does. He’s worked for this. They’ve worked for this together.

“Yeah, well. I want to make sure that I do.” Patrick takes David’s hand and presses their palms together. “And I think I want to start my second chance by asking you on a first date that you’re actually aware of.”

“First of all, I clearly thought it was a date at the time. You were very into me.” Hindsight being Lasik-enhanced, of course.

“But you didn’t _know._ And I want you to know, David. So I’ve got tacos for dinner, unburnt popcorn, three Back to the Future movies queued up on the big screen, and hey, look at this, I’m wide awake.”

“Aw, I don’t know, I kind of liked tiny laptop screens and raw cheese and randomly napping Patrick. He was charming.” He was also emotionally vulnerable and David thinks he liked that the best. He likes how he keeps finding new things that he likes best about Patrick. He likes how often he gets that now with Patrick, how willing he is to be himself with David.

“What if this time I actually make my move?” Patrick’s eyebrows do that little waggle. “You’re gonna love it, trust me.”

“Oh honey, I’ve seen your move. It’s fine.”

“It’s fine!?!” There’s a bit of red creeping into Patrick’s cheeks and his mouth drops into a cute little _o_ shape. It means that David absolutely must kiss him in the hallway of their under-construction theater-slash-gallery-slash-immersive-retail-environment or else he will perish. Pulling back from David’s lips, Patrick looks positively smug. “You know, my Yelp ratings are excellent.”

“I’m sure they are.” David looks around. He still smells tacos but they aren’t anywhere in his line of vision. “So these tacos you speak of? Are they readily available?”

“I don’t know, could we do another quick review of my move? Maybe rethink our ratings system?”

“Some kind of Likert scale? I strongly agree that you...possess a move.”

Patrick crosses his arms now but his eyes and his mouth don’t seem to agree with the rest of his body language. “David.”

“C’mon, you made me forget my own name twice last night and you say it constantly. I should have been able to at least get it from context clues.”

“David.” Patrick says again, face softening as he uncrosses his arms to wrap them around David’s waist. He then maneuvers his way under David’s roving hands so that they land on his firm shoulders. “Let’s go have our second first date. We can decide on the five star review afterwards.”

“Okay, but I think you know my standards are very difficult to match.” 

“I’m learning, yes.”

They eat their tacos sitting in folding chairs, over two sawhorses and a piece of plywood, and there is nothing about it that David would change, other than maybe ordering a few more tacos for the road (that they won’t need). Patrick cleans up while David settles into their preferred seats in Row P with the blanket Patrick brought because it gets cold in the theater and _you’re only wearing a leather sweater, David. You’ll freeze_. 

This time, Patrick kisses a tiny bit of churro crumb off of David’s curling lip, and his leg doesn’t fidget when Marty McFly plays guitar at the _Under the Sea_ dance. Tonight, Patrick’s emotional confession is when he whispers _I love you_ against the skin of David’s throat and there is nothing conflicted about the way David feels when he hears it or when he returns the sentiment, again and again. And just like last time, midway through the second movie, Patrick leans his head on David’s available shoulder in his state of Back to the Future related narcolepsy, though now, he’s snuggled in more tightly.

“I’m not tired, David, I’m just resting my eyes. It’s been a long day,” Patrick mumbles when David pokes at him with one slightly judgmental finger.

“No wonder we had to study these movies, they’re like melatonin to you.”

“They’re not like melatonin to me,” Patrick protests, struggling to sit back up from his previously molten state. “ _You’re_ like melatonin to me.”

“I’ll have you know that this is going in my review,” David mock-threatens and takes Patrick’s face in his hands in a fervent effort to kiss his perpetually sleepy boyfriend awake. 

By some kind of miracle, they manage to finish all three movies over the course of the evening between bites of churro, stolen kisses, roving hands, and several _very_ skilled moves from Patrick during the train scene in the third movie. (They’re going to need to update the commemorative plaque to include today’s date.) 

It occurs to David as the waves of move-induced euphoria wash over him that his future has already been written because as far as first dates go, he plans for this one to be his last.

* * *

After much negotiation and several purposeful sexual innuendos that result in more pleasure than business, David and Patrick decide on a soft launch of the newly renovated and reinvented Rose Art House. They’ve already spent the morning cleaning to David’s exacting specifications but with less than twenty-four hours to go, there are still paper cranes to fold and lights to hang. The initial giddiness of having something else they made together is beginning to give way to bone-deep exhaustion.

But the same way David and Patrick learned how to balance each other in trivia, they’ve learned to balance each other between the four walls of their art house-turned-gallery. There is nothing tentative about it, although there are days things feel a bit precarious. David compares it sometimes to tightrope walking, although it feels like there is always a net below. David doesn’t know if he’s ever trusted that before—the safe landing—but David knows that most of what will catch them is the virtue of walking this tightrope together.

Right now, they’re standing at the old concession space, which is now more of a bar, or will be once Ronnie grants them their liquor license, as Patrick instructs David on how to properly fold a paper crane. David used to dislike repetition, monotony. Doing the same thing over and over felt like a slow slog through a Times Square crowd, endless and cramped and oppressive. But then he met Patrick and suddenly repetition became ritual. A fine distinction and probably a pretty abstract one, but he’s realizing now that the ritual feels closer to worship. That doesn’t mean he’s going to do it without comment.

“You know, you could’ve enlisted your senior friends for this again,” David says through gritted teeth as Patrick patiently tells him for the fourth time to _crease, then unfold. No David, crease first._

“I could have, sure, but I thought this would be a fun thing we could do together. Also, if we both fold, we both wish.” Patrick brushes David’s shoulder with his own as he encroaches into David’s space, steadying him with a hand on his hip. 

It’s hard to stay annoyed when Patrick is pressing into the area between David and the counter, guiding his fingers in a swift motion down the edge of the cut-up old movie poster they’re repurposing into a crane. 

“Oh. I like this more than I did a minute ago,” David murmurs into the curls that sweep across Patrick’s collar and Patrick automatically tilts his head, exposing the corded muscle of his neck. David is starting to think that Patrick had no intention of team-building with this exercise, but was instead just angling to get his throat licked. Which, fine. David will oblige if he must (he really must...it is a fucking delicious neck. He can’t admit what he’s been thinking lately whenever he walks by the poster for _The Woman Who Loves Giraffes_ documentary, or the time he spends standing in front of it, licking his lips and picturing the sweet column of Patrick’s throat.) He may also have been hedging ever-so-slightly on how inept he is at paper-folding, just to get a little one-on-one attention. But now, his hands want to be unfolding something else. “Why don’t we take a break and come back to this?”

“David, we open tomorrow,” Patrick says, already tilting up to accept a lingering kiss, ever the pragmatist. “We’ll take a break after the cranes.” 

David knows by now that Patrick’s drive to win trivia championships transfers to basically every facet of his life and that fact is becoming ever clearer as they work together to shape their own business, so he gives Patrick another kiss and returns to work at his side.

He likes watching Patrick’s fingers fly over the glossy paper of the posters anyway, the deft and dexterous way he moves his hands. He knows Patrick is anxious about tomorrow because he’s said as much, in the shadows of their bedroom as they’re twined together about to fall asleep, and nothing eases Patrick’s internal chaos faster than external order. 

They set up an assembly line of sorts and develop a rhythm, with David only moderately distracted by the veins in Patrick’s hands as they work. He wonders how many more months it will take before he stops looking at those hands and marveling at them as if they are the eighth wonder of the world. Maybe that time will never come; he actually hopes it doesn’t. 

Patrick catches him staring. “More folding with your fingers, less folding with your eyes, David.”

“Bossy.” David grabs the crane Patrick just finished out of his right hand and Patrick snatches it back with his left. “And to think, you’re not even bionic.”

“Nope.” Patrick flexes the fingers of his left hand, maybe a little unconsciously. “One hundred percent all-natural.”

Now that Patrick’s wrist is healed, he is signed up for baseball in the spring, and has already been accompanying the Senior Choir on the piano. He’s also been walking around the apartment strumming his acoustic guitar like a misplaced troubadour. At first David worried that Patrick really was misplaced, that he was still giving up too much to be here with David. But with every accomplished project and every competently detailed spreadsheet, David knows that Patrick is exactly where he wants to be.

“And your parents will be here tonight?” David asks as he pulls his fingernail down tight against the paper. David already knows that Rachel can’t come because her new band is playing in Montreal this weekend but the Brewers probably booked a room at the motel the minute they announced their opening date. “Or tomorrow?”

“They’re driving in this afternoon but I already told them that we’ll be too busy for dinner.” 

“We are never too busy for dinner, Patrick.” David tsks. 

“I apologize for my oversight. I’ll text them later if you can tell me where they should meet us.” 

They spend the next twenty minutes and fifty cranes debating over the restaurant choice, with David ultimately settling on the Elmdale Inn with the melt-in-your-mouth steak that Patrick loves. Selfishly, he wants to give the Brewers a better meal than they had last time they visited; also he's determined to demonstrate that he can last an entire meal without running away, and the dessert selection there will help with that immensely.

When they finish cleaning up and checking off the last few items on their list, they stop at the front door and take a last look back at the space they’ve transformed together.

“Ready?” Patrick asks. David isn’t sure if he means ready to leave for the night, or ready to open.

“Yes,” he says, because it’s the same answer either way.

* * *

In the final minutes before the soft launch, David surveys the space for cranes slightly askew, fingerprints on doors and bar surfaces, and anything else that might be out of place. He tries not to pay too much attention to the list flashing through his head of _ways this could all go wrong._ He wants the opening to go well for many reasons, not the least of which is that he wants the Brewers to see a successful launch of the business their son started with him.

It’s an event that David has been meticulously planning for weeks, curating guest lists and programming, making sure that Roland is only allowed in after the soft-cheese station has been taken down and that Darlene’s cousin doesn’t curse out half of the line that has been forming around the block since lunch.

While they’ve decided to maintain the art house movie theater portion of the business so that David can enjoy the artistry of Isabelle Huppert whenever he so chooses, David and Patrick have also worked with local artists to set up exhibits and sell their art on consignment, while bringing in other locally sourced artisans’ wares. He wasn’t sure if people would want to buy body milk along with their upscale, gourmet, hand-popped popcorn, but the more he and Patrick talked about it, having an area to shop and browse will keep people in the building and hopefully spending money before shows, between double features, and during film festivals and the many other events they plan to host.

Once they open the doors, it’s a madhouse. People are everywhere, which is theoretically exactly what David and Patrick wanted. In practice, it means that David has barely seen Patrick all night. Occasionally, David will catch glimpses of him at the register or talking to guests near the new art deco wall hangings or as he shows off the collection of origami David insisted that he finally stop storing on his nightstand.

Patrick glances up as he’s showing his parents a more contemporary piece that Heather Warner submitted and catches David’s eye, transmitting the most beatific of smiles. David almost forgets that he's in the middle of handing Jocelyn a complimentary matcha butter tart and has it halfway to his own mouth before he realizes he’s been brain-addled just by Patrick flashing teeth from across the room. Stevie, of course, watches the whole thing and smirks at him from behind the bar.

Stevie also does nothing to prevent half of the members of the Senior Center choir from pinching both of David’s cheeks until Joan finally steers him away from the mob. He hasn’t seen her since he and Patrick got back together and he worries he has reached the first of the things that could go wrong tonight.

“Well, that was certainly a doozy of a move you pulled, Davy.”

Apparently Joan carries a Sicilian grudge, because it’s been over three months since he broke up with Patrick out of a twisted sense of Patrick’s own good. David understands why she might still be angry with him. Even though it is apparent that Patrick has forgiven him, he isn’t sure always that he’s forgiven himself. That seems to be a work in progress. He nods in agreement. “I think I might have been struggling to embrace joy.”

“Listen, I don’t want to meddle and I’m going to assume that you’ve worked all of that out between the two of you.” They have, David thinks, reminded of all the late night phone conversations and text messages while Patrick was at his parents’. Somehow space made it easier to talk about, but together they had to learn to put their resolutions into practice. 

“We have,” he says, as firmly as he can. 

Joan taps on David’s shoulder to remind him that she’s still in charge here. “But if I ever see his sweet face down in the mouth like that again, I will personally feed you prunes, one by one, until you are very very regular.”

The mental image is horrifying enough. “Is this...is this your version of a shovel talk?”

“Nah. Dot’s got the shovel.”

David tries not to ask if Dot can lift said shovel. “And she will use it?” He can’t believe he is feeding her lines for this. 

“I certainly hope not, Davy.” Joan takes a sip of her wine, which David hopes is allowed with her medications, and nods to Patrick, who is full-body laughing at something his dad is saying. “It’s nice to see the pep back in his step.”

“Yes, it is,” David agrees, wondering if he is more proud than embarrassed to be having this conversation. “I love him very much, if that helps ease your mind, and I will always respect Patrick and do what I can to protect him from...well, me. And the things that set me off.”

“I’m gonna take your word for it. You two are good eggs. You’ll take good care of each other.” Joan gives David a kiss on the cheek and follows it with one last pinch for good measure. “Hey, we’re having a poker game this Saturday and Mama needs a new pair of shoes. Face like yours around, I’ll win a bundle. You busy?”

David demurs out of self-preservation, but Joan probably knows that already since she can read him like a book, or so she says as he’s being pried away by Ted and George to go check on an issue with one of the projectors.

On his way up to the projection room, he sees Patrick getting along famously with Moira and Johnny Rose, which checks another thing off the list of _ways this could all go wrong_. It appears that with every interaction that David observes between Patrick and his own parents, he loses another ounce of fear that something his mother or father could do or say would somehow drive Patrick away. He’s even been able to stop watching their conversations through a mask of his own fingertips, mostly, and he’s proud of that progress.

Patrick has survived several Rose family barbecues with rousing fireside singalongs at this point, despite David’s fervent attempts to keep Patrick as safely distant from the madness as possible. David definitely thought he could have lived his entire life without hearing his boyfriend and father duet on _Hallelujah_ but now that he has, he doesn’t think he wants to trade it. (He might trade that ill-fated version of _Wind Beneath My Wings_ though. Some things just aren’t meant to be recreated.)

As David finishes with the projector, he’s feeling better about earning Joan’s forgiveness and Patrick blending with the Roses. The relief, however, is fleeting; from across the room, a bigger catastrophe seems imminent as the Brewers appear to be making their way with purpose toward the bar where Patrick is still talking with David’s parents. Patrick smiles and waves despite his earlier agreement to run something called a “zone defense.” David had no idea what he was talking about, unless the zone means _the entire building_ and defense means _chasing two well-meaning middle-aged people all over the fucking place_. David is certain he didn’t mean stand there and wave like a friendly lunatic as they approach. 

When the Brewers and Roses finally meet, it is in the way that Mafia families often tend to—furtively and under the cover of darkness. David manages to intercept the Brewers and usher them into one of the dimly-lit theaters with a series of broad pointing gestures in Patrick’s general direction that he thinks would make any sportsball director proud. Patrick, luckily, reads his frantic signals and nods with a flash or recognition and another of those brain-clearing smiles. When the Roses finally arrive with Patrick, David allows both parties to briefly mingle near the soft cheese station. Thankfully, they’ve caught David’s mother when she has had one glass of wine but before she has had two. 

The introductions go smoothly.

He used to think he’d never get to a point where he felt familiar enough to use the Brewers’ first names; he is close enough now to Marcy from all their phone calls and conversations and their mutual gratitude over getting everything they each wanted for Patrick that it feels natural now. Patrick steps a little closer and distracts Moira with questions about her upcoming production of _Cabaret,_ allowing David an opportunity to inhale about six pounds of cheese since he hadn’t had time for lunch. Enjoying his snack respite, David listens to their fathers engage in a long and excessively detailed discussion about wheelbarrows (David wasn’t even aware his father possessed opinions about wheelbarrows, but managing the motel had broadened his horizons considerably, apparently) and from the looks of things, their families are beginning to blend with minimum fuss.

Midway through the gathering, as David is finished eating and Patrick is leaning comfortably against his side, it occurs to David that maybe the Brewers aren’t threatening him with garden implements because they may actually trust him with their son’s heart. 

They are correct in their assessment, but David is realizing that his list of _ways this could all go wrong_ is rapidly diminishing and may be getting replaced by one entitled _ways that this is all going right._

* * *

It is after midnight when they finally clear out the guests and send the staff home, including Stevie who actually stayed an extra half-hour to help clean up, probably angling for more free wine from the bar. David finds Patrick sitting in Vic’s old office at Vic’s old desk—it is Patrick’s office now and it is Patrick’s desk and what that does to David’s chest, _wow_ —with his socked feet propped on the open bottom drawer. His new brown Oxfords which were purchased at his own, no-pressure, only-barely-subliminally-suggested behest to replace a certain pair of mountaineering shoes, are kicked off nearby.

Once Patrick settled into this office, David bought him a ream of carbon paper just for fun. Then the Brewers ended up sending over an entire box, because they have Patrick’s warped sense of humor. He looks like a real accountant and business manager now. Even down to his wardrobe. Down to his core. David loves him, unequivocally.

“I’ll have you know that socked feet in a public place is incorrect,” David says lightly from the doorway and Patrick, who is staring into the computer screen as if it is a portal into another dimension—or probably just an end-of-day spreadsheet—jumps in his chair. 

He clutches at his chest after he lands. “Jesus, David, you have a very soft tread. We’re going to have to get you a bell.” Patrick is panting a little, which David feels guilty for causing, but they’ve been working all day and David wants to take his boyfriend (and hell, his business partner) home. “Does this mean you’re ready to go?”

David nods. “It’s late.” David surveys the room with the clunky oak desk that doesn’t fit with the freshly painted wainscoting or the new artwork or David’s general aesthetic. Basically, it’s an eyesore. Patrick belongs behind something sleeker. He belongs in a space that deserves him. “If you want, we can get you something nicer,” he gestures at the furniture, “something with a few more consonants right in a row.”

“I’m happy with this desk, David.”

“That chair is probably deathly uncomfortable.”

“It is surprisingly ergonomic. It’s really helping with my back. The doctor will be proud.”

“Well, what about a fancy new adding machine?” David offers. 

“Yes, I demand the finest abacus in all the land,” Patrick intones regally and then swivels in his chair, lifting his feet off of the drawer and bending to pull his shoes back on quickly. “The inventory software we bought is great but if you really want to buy me a new calculator, I wouldn’t turn it down.” He examines David’s face for a moment, his gaze appraising. “What’s up? Why do you want to shower me in office supplies all of a sudden? My birthday isn’t for another month.”

“Office supplies are your love language,” David jokes, because he can’t explain it really. They haven’t even officially opened. He doesn’t know yet if they’ll be a success, or if anyone will want to routinely come to an upscale retail environment attached to an old-fashioned movie theater that shows independent art films and Sandra Bullock vehicles. It seems like they will, if Twyla’s soft-launch-invitation-grubbing cousins are to be believed and the steady stream of customers tonight is any indication. And maybe he’s ahead of himself, but it just feels like everything is falling into place. And he knows none of it could have happened without Patrick. It could have happened, maybe, just not half as well or as easily or maybe even at all. “I just don’t know how else to thank you for this. For having the idea.”

“I definitely didn’t have the idea. You had the idea. I just reminded you that you had the idea.” 

Patrick starts shutting down the computer, stacking up his file folders and notebooks and neatening the desktop to leave, but David isn’t quite ready to go after all.

He sits down on Patrick’s lap and the chair sways and groans. David tries not to take it personally; it’s an elderly chair. Wrapping his arms around his boyfriend, he rests his chin on Patrick’s head. “I’m really glad you joined my trivia team.”

“Me too, David.” Patrick’s eyes do something insufferably earnest until something clicks into place behind them. “I am still waiting for my set of Ginsu knives, though. Are they back in stock?”

David’s shoulders drop and he swears that Patrick might puff up a little bit as if he’s claiming a kind of moral victory. David groans. “What do I need to do to eternal sunshine your memory of those voicemails? Is there a potion or perhaps a handful of magic beans? Might there be a spray for that?”

“Nah, sorry. It’s all locked in tight.”

David gives him a cross look that Patrick clearly finds amusing. It must cause a short-circuit in David’s brain because then he says, “You’re...locked in...tight.”

“Well, this is certainly taking a turn.” Patrick reaches up to cup David’s face with his palm. They make out a little to demonstrate how very tight (or not tight) Patrick is feeling and it’s nice to have this bit of normalcy in an anxious time. Patrick is here and Patrick loves him and they’re doing this together. 

Hand in hand, they turn out the lights and shut everything down for the evening, and Patrick is careful to straighten the two photographs he keeps on that monstrosity of desk—the one of Shut the Front Dior after winning the Paradigm and the photo that his parents took of their whole family at the cafe. 

“You know, I was thinking we could even host Open Mic nights here,” Patrick says as they turn the lights off on the theater that still has a small stage in front of the screen from the days when films used to be introduced in person. “The ladies at the Senior Center are looking for a bigger venue.”

David does a quick revision to his list of _things that can go wrong_ , before replying with a barely-passable, “I am open to suggestions.”

Patrick just laughs, content to discuss it another time, and pulls him back out to the lobby.

David loves that he can see himself in their business—in each of the neatly ordered displays, in the gallery-like feel of the lobby, in the new fabrics and paint colors and every choice they’ve made to convert an ailing business into a (hopefully) thriving one. But what David loves most is that he doesn’t just see himself here; he sees Patrick too. He sees Patrick in the new lighting that he learned how to wire when the electrician got called away in the middle of the job, in his stubborn plans to bring in live musical acts and performance art, in the exhibit of Japanese paper arts that is now front and center in their new lobby. 

It’s really the same lobby that David has worked in for the past two years, although it’s been deep-cleaned with newly gleaming hardwood floors that were hand-laid by Patrick, after a lot of sweat and tears and a miniscule amount of blood, barely enough to warrant the three stitches Patrick got in his thumb trying to learn how to use the nail gun.

Every inch of the space is a choice that they’ve made together, even when sometimes the choice made was to stand back and allow the other person to make the decision. 

David used to think that he had gotten as close to real love as he would ever be; that sinking his time and energy into making something beautiful was what he was meant to do, but in lieu of having something more real, or more true. But standing in front of the Rose Art House, he knows that he was wrong. It is making something with someone you love that makes it real. 

* * *

With the Art House up and running, Shut the Front Dior’s twice weekly trivia nights at the Wobbly Elm and Cafe Tropical just aren’t possible. But David quickly realizes that they have plenty of space if they rearrange some tables (for proper egress) and a weekly trivia night can be held right in their lobby. The bar and concession make a killing on those nights, Patrick notes.

They have Ray host movie-themed nights once a month and hold an adjacent-film festival during the week; the Julia Stiles-A-Thon yields some very strange fruit in terms of an evening of trivia. David suspects that Ray enjoyed that deep-dive into her oeuvre more than he was letting on because he can’t stop humming “Can’t Keep My Eyes Off of You,” as he announces the game.

Occasionally they leave the theater in Stevie’s care so David and Patrick can stop in the Wobbly Elm or the Cafe for a game by themselves, though David insists that they are not allowed to play under Shut the Front Dior without the rest of their teammates present.

Whenever David wins their game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, he names their two-person team Get Haute of Town, which might have been a more fitting name for both of them when they started. David is coming to realize, though, that getting out of town now is the last thing he wants to do. 

Tonight, Patrick won, so they are playing under the strangely complimentary but very unfortunate name of Patrick and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamboat. It doesn’t feel like any time has passed when Patrick hops an origami frog into his space while Ray plays _She Blinded Me With Science._ David watches the surrounding teams begin to hand their answers about the science term whose origin comes from the Greek word for indivisible to Jocelyn. When Patrick starts singing “two atoms in a molecule inseparably combined,” under his breath, David pushes the answer pad toward him so he can write down the answer he believes to be correct. 

“So what do you think?” David asks after Patrick writes the word ‘atom’ in his neat, block print. “You’re sure the answer isn’t molecule?”

Patrick flips his pen in the air and catches it in his left. “I am six points sure.”

Yes, so is David.

Sometimes he feels like playing trivia fused his soul back together. He can’t say that out loud because it sounds like something Gwyneth might say as she announces a conscious uncoupling and he can’t afford the ensuing Patrick-driven tangent, as much as he likes watching one unfold. But seeing how Patrick’s mind works—the way it processes and synthesizes information, the bright and shiny steel-trapness of it—it is the same way that David imagines that Patrick’s heart functions when it comes to loving him. That Patrick is constantly assessing and processing and retaining information about David and that David is held there, decisively, purposefully, carefully, right in the epicenter of Patrick’s beating heart. 

He can confirm, without a doubt, that the reverse is true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry it took me as long as it did to wrap up this story. I am grateful for all the love and support this little (it is not that little; sorry, I have forgotten how to be succinct) universe.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who encouraged me and who checked in and who supported this fic.
> 
> vivianblakesunrisebay, you came in clutch so often. I appreciate all of your help and your contributions to this chapter and all the others.
> 
> Distractivate. Listen. I don't know what I'd do without your support and guidance and patience. Thank you for making this better in so many ways.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic since January and my beta  Distractivate  has been there every step of the way, all the way from inception (which I think also includes accidentally incepting me to write an AU where David and Patrick meet playing bar trivia). That also means that she has read and re-read the first, second, third, and one bajillionth draft of this thing while talking me off of NUMEROUS ledges. Everyone already knows what a tremendous writer she is, but she is also a fantastic beta and an even better friend. I cannot, however, explain the hours she keeps. I thought it was vampirism but I think there may also be magic involved? Anyway, I digress. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope that you stick around. I love comments and I love kudos and I love any kind of validation you care to offer.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The More You Know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25458457) by [Amanita_Fierce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanita_Fierce/pseuds/Amanita_Fierce)




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